


Waking Lions

by LeoArcana



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Guardian Forces, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sorceresses, potential MCD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-04-28 11:40:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14448534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeoArcana/pseuds/LeoArcana
Summary: How are Guardian Forces created...?  Were they even created or had they always existed?  If they always existed, then that means Griever must be out there somewhere.It was a thought that that crossed Squall’s mind whenever he had time to himself in the months following Ultimecia’s demise.  But one shouldn't always investigate an idle curiosity.





	1. Routine

_How are Guardian Forces created...?_

It was a question that crossed Squall’s mind whenever he had time to himself in the months following Ultimecia’s demise.  He stared intently at the Griever pendant dangling and turning slightly on its chain, dangling from his fingers.  Whenever the pendant stilled, he twitched one of his fingers and prompted it back into motion.

Griever wasn’t real.  Griever was something he’d made up.  And yet, the beast had roared into existence right before his eyes.  More unnerving, he also looked exactly as he’d always imagined him; he’d never said a word to anyone what he thought Griever would look like.  Not that many asked much of anything about either his necklace, ring, or gunblade case. 

He’d considered that maybe somewhere in the future, Griever could come into existence.  He didn’t reject the idea.  But it still left the question, _how?_  

Squall narrowed his eyes at the glinting metal, racking his brain for something he might’ve read or heard in class, but nothing came to mind.  He briefly wondered if the instructor had even covered that, or if being junctioned to several Guardian Forces for so long had wiped that memory as well, amongst others.  Maybe if he got the chance later, he’d ask one of the instructors about it, or visit the library.

For now, he had a meeting to attend.  After the celebration of victory had begun to lose its glamor, people began questioning the fate of Gardens and the SeeD program.  It wasn’t the first meeting focused on the issue either.  Previous efforts to decide what should be done always ground down into circular arguments.  He sighed and sat up, clasping the necklace around his neck.  He set his jaw, already annoyed, and trudged his way out of the dorms and to the elevators.

Between all the headmasters, commanders, upper administrations, and even sometimes a Gardenmaster or president, there was always someone declaring the SeeD program should be ended and the Gardens made into traditional schools, there were no more threats of a sorceress, such strong military presence and paranoia would only foster animosity.  Someone would always argue then if the program ended, it would provide an opportunity for a sorceress to rise to power unchecked, it could even be the very thing that allowed Ultimecia to accrue so much power in the first place.  But if the program was kept and managed to prevent her rise, then none of the past events would’ve happened and who knows where’d they be now.

Around and around the debates would go until no one could tolerate trying to conceptualize the effects any of their actions would have on the future, past, or present any longer.  The meeting would be adjourned, reschedule, and would repeat itself.

Squall had long since given up saying anything.  He didn’t speak unless spoken to, which was unfortunately more often than he’d like.  He’d made his stance clear, that the program should be kept.  He’d even tried compromise by suggesting that either only one Garden remain training SeeD, perhaps have the training program redesigned now that they knew what the purpose of SeeD was, and have those SeeD become a special forces akin to the White SeeD.  The other two Gardens could become traditional schools. There’d been a few mutterings of agreement and consideration, only to be dismissed by those adamant to shut down the program.

Only Cid continued trying to lobby Squall’s idea, but Squall could see Cid was at his wits end and just exhausted.  He didn’t know how the man kept going, Squall always left with a piercing headache, one that actually plagued him quite constantly.  Dr. Kadowaki had said it was all stress related.  Of course, she suggested distancing himself from stressors, but it was apart of the job and until _these morons_ reached a decision, he couldn’t.

All he could think as the meeting dragged on was how stupid some of these people sounded.  There were too many people involved.  None of them seemed to have realized the pattern these meetings go in.  He just wanted to leave, he could already feel a headache coming on.  Maybe he could slip out unnoticed.  The headmasters of Galbadia and Trabia were currently locked in a heated discussion whether Trabia should even have a say, the Garden was still in ruins.

Selphie was apart of the team in charge of restoring Trabia Garden, but with the fate of Gardens still unknown, there was only so much that could be done.  At the very least, the Garden no longer held an apocalyptic appearance.

Squall silently stood from his chair against the wall.  After one particular meeting and a slight loss of temper, he’d petulantly refused to even sit at the same table as those morons.  And in line with pride and pettiness, he continued to refuse to sit at the table and always dragged a chair away to the wall.  He’d made it to the door and had a glimmer of hope he was actually going to make it out of this repetitive hell.  Until the door gave its usually hiss as the hydraulics opened it.

“Squall, where are you going?”

He ground his teeth, curling his lip slightly.

“I just need a break,” Squall replied tightly.

“I think we all do, perhaps we should adjourn and come back with clearer minds.”

Everyone agreed to that, of course.  Squall tipped his head back and gave an exasperated sigh.  _Round and round we go..._

At the very least, it ended early this time.  He hurried out, taking long strides and distancing himself from everyone quickly before anyone could catch him and ask him anything.  Once he made it to the elevator, pushing the ‘close doors’ button like his life depended on it.  The doors closed just as the Galbadian headmaster set eyes on him and started his way.  He let out a sigh of relief as the elevator descended.  He wasn’t particularly fond of the headmaster, he was rather opinionated and one of the ones who dug their heels in the most.  He wished just once that General Caraway would attend one of these meetings, he’d probably side with him and Cid.  At the very least it’d mean Rinoa would get to visit.

Squall hadn’t seen her in nearly a month now.  She’d gone back to Deling City to try to work on her relationship with her father, suggesting with a smile that Squall should do the same and he’d grimaced in response.  He tried to pretend that he’d never learned that Laguna was his father.  But her presence there had begun to turn into a sort of publicity stunt to show that sorceresses weren’t all bad.  Neither Squall nor Rinoa were keen on that, and most of the world was apprehensive to learn that a sorceress still walked among them.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts.  There wasn’t anything he could do about it right now, so why worry about it.  Plus, she was under her father’s protection. 

For now, he decided to use his unexpected free time to go to the cafeteria.  There was plenty of work he could catch up on instead, but he rarely got a chance to sit down and eat a decent meal.  Just the thought of getting a full meal had his stomach growling.

Once the doors opened, he made a beeline for the cafeteria.  It was still a little early for lunch, so thankfully there were only a few people.  The cafeteria woman seemed slightly surprised to see him there, but made no comment as she served him the lunch special of the day, chicken tenders and potato wedges.  He took a seat by a window, taking the time to study the landscape as he ate.  It was rare for the Garden to remain still anymore, but it had been done for the benefit of those attending the meeting.  It made it easier to board and didn’t unfairly lengthen any travel times in its roaming.

He was nearly done when something heavy dropped on the table, starling him and tearing him from his thoughts.  He turned to glare at the source of the offense and saw Zell dropping into the seat across from him, a pile of books now sitting on the table.  He sighed as he set his own food on the table and leaned back.  Squall said nothing, looking at him and waiting for him to say something first.  Perhaps apologize for spiking his heart rate.  But he didn’t say anything and only started into his plate of hot dogs.

“Doing some research?” Squall asked dryly, nodding towards the books.

“Quistis asked me to look for some books,” Zell said through a mouthful, “She thinks of her students made one up on their works cited, but she isn’t sure.”

Following their victory, Quistis had been offered her teaching position back.  She’d almost refused it out of spite, but she did very much like teaching and had gotten her fill of field work and missions.  But was constantly inundated with grading assignments and coming up with new teaching plans.  Zell helped her out where he could.  It gave him something to do.

“And you had to check the books out...?”

Zell paused his chewing for a second, a light blush dusting his cheeks.

“Well, I thought, uh, she might wanna actually see the books,” Zell shrugged, “Double check, y’know?”

“...You wanted to talk to the library girl.”

Squall leaned back in his chair with a small smile tugging at his lips as Zell’s blush deepened.  He huffed and scowled back at him.

“What’re you doing here?  Aren’t you supposed to be in a meeting?”

“It ended early.”

“You guys finally decided on something?”

“Nope.  It’s going to be rescheduled...again.”

“Maybe you should just threaten them to comply,” Zell snorted.

“I’d like to avoid any more hostage situations and international crises.”

“Gah, you’re boring now.”

Squall fixed him with a sideways look.  Zell held his hands up apologetically with a smile.  Squall rolled his eyes and went back to looking out the window at the still landscape.  Movement in the sky caught his attention and he saw small crafts departing the Garden’s small flight deck; everyone who’d attended the meeting was leaving now.  They must’ve decided on another date, the one thing they could agree on.  Once the crafts were clear of the Garden, the halo begun to spin and the Garden shuddered as it started moving. 

The shifting landscape beneath them was oddly comforting and he could feel his headache beginning to ease up.  He even considered just taking the entire day off, if it meant getting a break from the pain.  But he knew he couldn’t.  He muttered something about going to catch up on work to excuse himself and Zell waved him off, fixated on his hot dogs. 

Squall took his time making his way to the commander’s office, reminding himself all the while that if he didn’t go, he’d have even more work to do and it’d only worsen his headache.

Xu greeted him in slight surprise and he returned it with a light grunt.  He walked up a short flight of steps to his desk and dropped down in the chair.  He eyed the stacks of mission requests, mission assignments awaiting to be assigned to a team, mission reports, contracts waiting payments, various reports and requests for equipments and repairs...

If Rinoa were here, she’d come waltzing into his office and lean on his desk, complain about all the work and tell him he needed a selfcare day.  She’d take him down into whatever town was nearest and drag him all over the town all day, have lunch in whatever restaurant was closest when they got hungry—

“Are you alright?”

“Huh?”

“You’ve been staring at the desk for almost ten minutes,” Xu said.

“I’m fine,” Squall breathed.

He sat up straighter and plucked a file off the mission assignments stack.  He skimmed through it and brought up the SeeD availability and assigning program on the computer to see which teams were available and which were a good fit.  A small note towards the bottom of the details caught his attention: _Guardian Force support advised for mission._

He groaned internally, already knowing that all SeeD who were authorized to use GFs were currently out on missions.  He’d need to choose a team strong enough without any support or have to go himself.  Which, honestly, didn’t sound too terrible.  He read over the file again, searching for a reason a GF would be advised.

Squall didn’t reread more than a couple lines before his line of thought derailed to his earlier ponderings.  He scowled inwardly at himself for the distraction and set to finding a team that could do without the aid of a GF.  Once he found one, he sent an email to the leader of the team, notifying them of the mission and then tossed the report aside. 

He picked up the next and started steadily working through the pile of requests until the late afternoon, then moved on to the completed contracts still waiting to receive payment.  He didn’t know why this was his job at all, it was something they should have a specific department for, alongside being in charge of equipment and repairs.  It was honestly his least favorite paperwork, but if it didn’t get done, then he’d have to sit and listen to Cid lecture him about the importance.  Oddly enough, Cid didn’t seem to care much about any other stack of reports piling up.

When he couldn’t stand it anymore, he shut off the computer and dropped the current report back on its stack.  He muttered goodbye to Xu on his way out and made his way down to the cafeteria again for a later dinner.  He didn’t stay, instead taking it in a styrofoam box to eat in his dorm.  Or on the way to his dorm, he was hungrier than he realized.

Squall reached his dorm and dropped the empty box into the garbage can as he went directly to the bathroom to shower.  He then redressed in a well-worn shirt and boxers, then fished through this coat in search of his phone.  There was a missed call from Rinoa and he tapped her name; she answered immediately, throwing him off.

“Did you just have your phone in your hand?” Squall asked.

“Always,” Rinoa giggled, “How’s it going?”

“Same shit, different day,” Squall hummed.

“Meeting go the same too?”

“It ended early.”

“Oh?”

“They gave up discussing earlier than normal.”

“Oh...you should start making threats.”

“Zell said the same thing,” Squall smiled, “I’d rather not.  But it is tempting.  How’s it going in Deling?”

“Just wonderful, everyone definitely loves having a sorceress around,” Rinoa replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“You should just come back to the Garden.”

"I know,” Rinoa whined, “I miss you.”

"I miss you too.  So, when are you coming back?"

"I dunno, my dad thinks it'd be better to keep my distance from Gardens and SeeD because of the whole thing with Ultimecia and Galbadia."

Squall grumbled incoherently.  It was a perfectly valid concern and one Squall might've had if it were anyone other than Rinoa.

"I know," Rinoa laughed softly, "Why don't you come to Deling?"

"I have too much work to do."

"You always have work," Rinoa pouted, "It's never gonna end."

"Truer words have never been spoken," Squall agreed.

"C'mon, you're still a teenager, you shouldn't be all cramped up in an office.  There's time for that later!"

He could say the same in regards to her being used to seat public opinion on sorceresses, but he thought better of it.

"I'll see if there's any missions near Deling I can take, be nice to do some field work.  How about that?"

"Ugh, if that's the best I can get..." Rinoa sighed dramatically, then laughed.

"I'll look tomorrow then," Squall said, "For now, I'm going to bed."

"This early?  Maybe you're not a teenager after all," Rinoa teased.

Squall rolled his eyes with a soft smile.

"Alright, I'll talk to you later.  Love you," Rinoa chimed.

"Love you too," Squall replied.

He tapped the red button on the screen and tossed his phone aside.  It was a little early, but he took sleep where he could get it.  It seemed like the only time he could truly relax was when he was asleep, but even then, that wasn't always a guarantee.  He rolled on his side and pulled the covers up enough to cover half his face and settled in.  He let out a deep breath and closed his eyes, willing himself to fall asleep.  The second hand on the clock on his wall ticked by, keeping time and letting him know how long it was taking to fall asleep.  But eventually he tuned it out, it's sound faded, and his mind fell into a pleasant, dark, and dreamless state.

Unfortunately, it didn't remain that way for long.

Stars flickered into existence, streaking by.  Long rays of light followed them, casting iridescent rainbows.  And he knew what came next.

From the source of the light and stars, rose a pair of horns resembling bat-like wings.  Arms folded over a hollowed, faceless skull.  Twisted, violet protrusions behind an elongated, emaciated, and inhuman body.

_"I am Ultimecia.  Time shall compress... All existence denied."_

The light flared from her hollowed skull, blinding him for a brief moment, just before an eruption of light waves in all the spectrum and debris.  She passed Hell's Judgement on them, filling the void with an ethereal red and violet glow as a glyph formed beneath their feet.  It brightened and burst into hellish flames, comparable to Ifrit's, and so vivid he felt their blazing heat searing through him.

He bolted upright, gasping and sweating.  A light tremor ran through him, courtesy of the cool air against his burning skin.  He took several deep breaths to calm himself and remind himself it was only a nightmare memory.  One that often liked to repeat.

Squall ran a hand through his hair and slowly laid back down.  He picked up his phone, unlocking it and wincing at its bright light, to see it was 3:27am.  He sighed and dropped his phone back down, then sat up and rearranged his pillows to comfortably sit against the wall.  He shivered in the cool night air and drew the covers up over himself.  He reached up and pulled a string to open the blinds of his window, revealing moonlit, snowy landscape meeting a dark ocean.  They were near Trabia.  He wondered idly if they would pass the other Garden, he hadn't gotten to see any of the progress on its repairs yet.

Balamb Garden continued to hum over the ocean, skirting along the jagged coast.  At this rate, he was certain the peaceful night would lull him back to sleep before they came near Trabia, if that was at all on their meandering course.

The Garden’s slow pace and peaceful landscape managed to put him to sleep quickly, this time letting him sleep through the night without a single dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back in my original Trash Can™ (even tho this is the first FF fic i've published here...or that is still online...)


	2. Thunderstruck

There weren’t any missions near Deling City, at least none that could justify him going.  The few mission requests they had for the area were low-paying and often simple enough that even a cadet who hadn’t yet taken the SeeD exam could probably take care of them.  Galbadia Garden received the vast majority of the contracts, which no one could fault the Garden for that. 

But there was one contract he could do.  It had come from Esthar.  In their efforts to reopen themselves to the world, they had been trying to clear a pathway through the Salt Flats, but the process was repeatedly halted by an exceptionally strong monster.  In their own attempts to fight it, they became more suspicious that it wasn’t just a monster, but a potential Guardian Force.  The contract contained the details of the encounters they had with it, along with a few photos to identify it.

It was a dark horse with gray pattern strips along its neck and shoulder, a matching frazzled looking mane and short tail, a faded gold bangle around its neck, metal bands on its front legs, and what Squall could only describe as the most disproportionately large horn protruding from its face.  The supposed GF used its lightning-based attacks to short their equipment or impale some of their large machines with its horn. 

The roadwork crew attempted working in different areas, but the horse always showed up and wrecked everything.  It was getting to be too expensive, even for Esthar.  The payment stated that, if it was indeed a Guardian Force, Balamb could keep it.  If it had to be killed to stop it, or if it wasn’t a GF, then the city would pay them seven hundred fifty thousand gil. 

Squall pulled out his phone and sent a text to Zell, asking if he wanted to come along.  He considered asking Quistis as well, but being an instructor again, she wasn’t fond of cancelling her classes.  Squall remembered a time Quistis had had to cancel a class because she was sick.  The Garden had offered to provide a substitute, but she responded with the class may as well be cancelled.  Substitutes never got anything accomplished.

Zell didn’t reply.  Instead, several minutes later, the door to the office slid open, revealing an impatient Zell who then ran straight to Squall’s desk.

“Are you serious?” Zell asked excitedly, “There’s another GF?!”

“They only said it might be,” Squall clarified, “Do you want to go or not?”

“Hell yeah!  When are we leaving?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Can’t we just go after lunch?” Zell whined, “It’s not like it takes that long to get there.”

It was just half past eleven and a flight to the Salt Flats with the Ragnarok wouldn’t take more than a couple hours.

“Zell, I do have other work I need to do,” Squall deadpanned.

“It’ll be there tomorrow.  C’mon, you know you wanna get out of here.”

Squall sighed, he was right.  He didn’t want to be here, he’d been wanting to get out and do field work for a while.  Zell folded his hands together, making a pleading face and mouthing the word ‘please’.  Squall rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Alright, fine, we’ll leave at two.”

“Hell yeah!” Zell punched the air, “I’ll meet you in the cafeteria in an hour!”

Zell ran back out of the office before Squall could say anything more.  He pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment, then let out a breath and logged into the computer to assign himself and Zell to the mission.  He filled out the prompts asking method of travel, arrival date, equipment and/or weapons being brought, and whether any GFs were accompanying them.  Squall consistently had Shiva and Bahamut junctioned, but with this being a lightning-based monster, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to bring Doomtrain as well. 

He sent off the details of the mission and received a notification a minute later the mission was accepted and to be commenced later that day.  He then sent a few emails notifying that he was going to be out of the office for the rest of the day and tomorrow.  He knew they could finish it today, but who knew what time they’d be getting back.  Even if they got back early, it would be nice not to have anyone trying to contact him for a day.

Squall left the office with the mission request and photos, and made his way down to the armory to retrieve Doomtrain.  All the GFs were kept in the armory now, to be loaned out like weapons to whichever SeeD team may need them.  It had been a bit of a challenge, since once the Guardian Forces were defeated and subdued for junctioning, their corporeal forms faded.  Keeping so many of them in the computers, as Shiva and Quezalcoatl had been, proved too much for the systems and frequently overloaded and crashed them.  Squall had briefly complained about this in one his short conversations with Laguna, who had then, in turn, gifted him with several crystals Esthar’s scientists had been experimenting with to create mobile draw points to allow soldiers to carry more magic.  Laguna didn’t know at all how to use them or if they could even house a Guardian Force.  Thankfully they did work with Guardian Forces, though each crystal could only hold one.

 Squall reached the armory and requested Doomtrain.  The clerk handed him the paper to fill out to take the GF.  He filled out everything with Zell’s information, which the clerk scowled at him for.  The armory staff hated when he or any of the others filled out paper for each other.  The rules stated that you could only fill out the form for yourself.  But Cid had told the staff to make an exception for them, _‘they saved the world after all!’_  

He drew the GF from the crystal, then requested twelve rounds of armor piercing bullets for his gunblade.  The clerk retrieved the bullets and shoved them towards him.  Squall took the rounds without so much as a returned dirty look. 

He went to his dorm and retrieved one of his gunblades, setting the rounds inside its case, and took it up to the flight deck to the Ragnarok.  As he hefted the case up into a compartment, he couldn’t help but think how lucky Zell was that he’d chosen martial arts.  He could fit all his ‘weapons’ in his pockets. 

In the cafeteria, Zell was sitting restlessly at a table with a half-eaten plate of hot dogs.  He hadn’t done any field work in almost as long as Squall.  He stopped by the cafeteria counter and asked for whatever the special of the day was, which happened to be hot dogs.  He scowled and narrowed his eyes at the food; it wasn’t that he hated them, it just that there were some days they’d been cooked either too much or not enough.  Today was clearly one of those days.  Still, he needed to eat.

“Okay, I know you said it only _might_ be a GF,” Zell started through a mouthful, “But what do you think?”

“It could be,” Squall shrugged, “If they said who they were using to try to stop it, maybe that’d make it clearer.  If it was just for-hire bounty hunters, probably not.  But if it was Estharian soldiers, then it may be.”

“Sooo, yes...?”

“Yes, I think it might be,” Squall replied dryly.

“How cool would it be to find a new one?” Zell beamed, “I thought we had them all!”

“So did I...” Squall hummed.

Zell finished off his plate and eyed Squall’s as he picked at it until he finally surrendered it to Zell.  Once that plate was cleared as well, they both made for the flight deck.  The crew had finished prepping the Ragnarok and it was ready for takeoff.  Squall took the pilot’s seat, being more familiar with flying the aircraft.  He switched on the navigation and entered the coordinates from the mission request.  From their current location, it would only take about an hour to reach the work site.

As they flew, Zell chattered on in excitement about the idea of discovering a new GF.  He asked several times about the monster, to which Squall just handed over the paper and photos.  It wasn’t quite what Zell had expected, but it didn’t lessen his excitement.  As he kept talking, Squall couldn’t but wonder how they hadn’t come across it when they’d crossed the Salt Flats nearly a year ago now.

_Was it hiding?  Did it not care about us because we weren’t trying to plow a road through the Salt Flats?  Or... is it new?_

“There it is!  Squall, look!  Its right down there!” Zell yelled.

Squall snapped out of his thoughts, he didn’t even realize it’d been an hour already.  Zell was pressed up against the window, checking over his should every other second to see if Squall was looking, like a child.  Squall set the auto-pilot for a moment to get up.  Sure enough, just below them he could see its dark body and ashy mane sauntering along a path.

“At least we have an idea where it is,” Squall thought aloud.

He went back to the pilot’s seat and disengaged the autopilot to look for a landing spot.  The closest flat ground large enough to allow the Ragnarok to come in for a landing was about a half mile from the work site, close to the edge of the Salt Flats.  The Ragnarok landed a little roughly, kicking up clouds of salt and dirt around it. 

Zell quickly slipped on his Ehrgeiz, punching his own palms to make sure they felt right.  Squall hauled his gunblade case out of the compartment, loaded six rounds of armor piercing bullets into the Lionheart’s chamber, and packed the remaining bullets into his thigh holster.

“You ready for a good ol’ fashion rodeo?” Zell grinned.

Squall side-eyed him.

“That was kinda lame, I know.”

“Wasn’t even accurate,” Squall mumbled.

Zell rolled his eyes and strode by to the Ragnarok’s exit.  Squall shouldered his gunblade and followed suit, the door hissing shut behind him.  The walk to the work site was mostly quiet, save for Zell’s huffing as he shadowboxed the air in front of him.  When the work site came into view, Squall broke the silence.

“By the way, I picked up Doomtrain for you.”

“Aww, a present for me?” Zell teased.

Squall said nothing as Zell drew the GF from him.  They stepped up close to one of the sleeping machines and waited a minute.  They’d both thought that the monster would come running with people at the work site.  They looked at each other and shrugged, then Zell climbed up into a nearby digging machine.  As luck, or negligence, would have it, the keys had been left in the ignition.  He switched it on and the engine roared to life beneath him.  He shifted a few of the sticks, the gears grinding in objection, and move its long arm.

Hardly a minute later, Squall heard faint galloping.  He knocked his gunblade against the side of the machine to get Zell’s attention and tell him to come back down. The horse must’ve been closer than they realized, or faster. There was hardly a beat between hearing it’s hooves beating the flat stony ground and seeing it suddenly, running full tilt towards the digger.

Zell jumped out of the machine, landing clumsily and staggering several steps, just as the horse buried its massive horn straight into the machine’s engine. It sparked and smoked, dying almost instantly and bringing a brief moment of silence. The horse wretched it’s head back and forth, the metal groaning and shrieking in protest, and freed itself from the machine. It gave a haughty snort, raking its hoof across the ground proudly and turning.

The horse paused upon seeing Squall and Zell. It almost looked _surprised_ to see them, it must’ve expected the usual crew to be making noise. It snorted again and disregarded them, intent to walk away.

Zell’s jaw dropped and he looked to Squall incredulously, raising his arm at the monster. Squall wore a similar expression, he’d never seen a monster turn its back so casually.

“Hey!” Zell barked.

The horse paid him no mind.

Zell puffed up his chest and ran at the horse. He jumped up, grabbed its horn, and threw his weight down hard. The horse fell to its front knees with a cry of surprise. It whipped its head roughly, throwing Zell up against a wall of salt. Squall rushed forward as it got to its feet and reared up, preparing to impale Zell. The monster’s hooves slammed down, cracking the ground with a smattering of small sparks, and its head surged down at him. Zell threw his arms up in defense.

Only to have its horn knocked aside and buried into the hard salt. The monster glared at Squall and wretched its head back and forth again, this time harder in an effort to hit Squall. He kept his gunblade up, the broad blade of the Lionheart hindering its efforts. Zell got to his feet again, ducked by Squall, and tackled its legs. The horse cried out again as it fell to the ground, its horn coming free from the salt. It twisted over, legs flailing, and stumbled back onto its feet.

Now it looked like it was going to take them seriously.

The monster raked its hoof on the ground and reared up, sparks dancing along its horn. It dropped back down, cracking the ground again, and sending arcs of lightning spiraling towards Squall. He held the Lionheart up to shield himself, but the lightning still shocked him alongside the unexpected burst of violent wind.  

_Did it just dual-cast?_

Without pause, it charged Zell again, swinging its head. Zell caught the horn and was pushed several feet back, but remained on his feet. He shoved the horn away and followed up with a side kick to its jaw, flinching a little as he did. It staggered slightly and Squall took the opportunity to attack. His gunblade sliced along its shoulder, sending a little shock up his arm. The monster swung its horn at Squall, but deflected again. Zell moved to strike again and the monster saw it from the corner of its eye, and stepped back, narrowly dodging him.

The monster shook its mane and cast down thunder on him, leaving him dazed for a second. Before it could even raise its head again, Squall brought his gunblade down. There was an audible crack, though nothing showed on the blade nor the horse’s horn. Another crack. Squall was then immediately electrocuted by what felt like Thundaga. The horse was conducting the spell directly from its horn through the gunblade, keeping the spell sustained and Squall paralyzed in pain.

Zell dropkicked the point of contact, electrocuting himself for a second. Squall allowed himself to drop to one knee in relief and catch his breath before steeling himself and swinging again, this time clipping its foreleg and pulling the trigger as he did. The blast of the armor piercing round nearly took its leg off.

The monster cried out shrilly, staggering back. It reared up once more, calling down lightning. Zell and Squall both braced for it, but the lightning struck the monster instead. Arcs crawled over its body, focusing in on its now barely attached leg; the smaller arcs stitching the muscle, tendons, and skin back together.

Squall set his jaw and surged forward, feeling the rush of adrenaline that lead to a limit break. He slashed at its neck, missing, but striking and blasting the bangle hanging in front of its chest and rending flesh from ribs. The monster shocked itself, sewing itself back together. Zell came in with a punch rush and heel kick, forcing it to stumble and provide an opening to its underside. Squall took the opening, slashing and pulling the trigger on its stomach.

But even that wasn’t enough to fell the monster.

It healed itself yet again, though this time the process even slower. Lightning danced around its horn and it spread its forelegs, bracing itself. The lightning surged and shot out, electrocuting Squall somehow worse than before, and he was vaguely aware of his feet leaving the ground. As the monster lifted its head, it lifted Squall.

Zell panicked, fearing this may be its ultimate attack, and summoned Doomtrain. Crossing guards burst from the ground in front and behind the monster. Two lines of blazing fire erupted in either direction.

The horse suddenly aborted its attack, dropping Squall unceremoniously, and tried to escape the crossing. Only to find it was somehow trapped there. It bucked and kicked, trying to break the invisible force that kept it there. As the train horn sounded, Squall reloaded the Lionheart’s chamber.

Doomtrain came into sight, its skeletal face illuminated by the fiery tracks it barreled down.  The horse struggled to break free of the crossing guards, crying out furiously that its attempts were to no avail.  Doomtrain slammed into the monster, its plow lifting it from the crossing guard and coating it in poison as it was flung into the sky.  Doomtrain carried on down its tracks, fires extinguishing behind it.  The monster struck the ground creating a small crater with its mass as the crossing guards sank back into the ground.

It struggled to get back to its feet, bones clearly broken.  The horse struck itself with Thunder again, then managing to clumsily get to its feet.  The poison seized its body, making it stagger on already uneasy feet.  It realized now that it may be out matched and turned to flee.  The horse broke into a gallop, stumbling into a wall of salt as the poison seized it once more.  It struck itself once again to counteract the damage and resumed its gallop.

Squall ran after it, but he knew even poisoned it was still too fast for him.  He didn’t have any time magic, but the next best thing would be to freeze it; Squall summoned Shiva.

A pillar of ice erupted in front of the horse, scaring it into falling.  The ice burst, Shiva stretching her slender arms and raising them over her head, a blue light gathering in her hands.  She whipped her arms down, casting Diamond Dust and covering the walls and ground in thick ice, gale force winds sweeping over the frozen area.  Squall and Zell braced themselves against the icy wind and shielding their faces.  There was a crackling sound just before all the ice around them shattered, sending razor sharp shards flying.  The ice flayed the horse’s body, even nicking Squall and Zell a few times, and leaving it in a growing pool of its own blood.

The horse was slow to get up now.  It weakly raised its head, intent on healing itself once more.  Squall took the opportunity to rush forward, the edge of the gunblade dragging along the ground.  He started with an upcut, pulling the trigger, and unleashed a flurry of slashing blows accompanied by explosive strikes.

Using Renzokuken may have been overkill at this point, any kind of finishing move would certainly be and he had to resist the urge to do anything else after the last round was fired into the horse.  If it was a Guardian Force, he didn’t want to kill it.

He moved back away from the horse, Zell coming up to his side and ready to attack.  The horse shifted lamely, glaring up at them intensely and breathing heavily.  The horse made an effort to get up, but its lacerated and poisoned body failed to obey it.  It drew in a deep breath and bowed its head concedingly.  Tendrils of pastel auras rose around it and swirled, resembling a draw point.

It was a Guardian Force.

Zell looked to Squall with excitement all over his face.  Squall drew the new GF, but didn’t junction it.  He sensed bitterness and anger within it as it settled and, through Squall’s eyes, watched its corporeal body fade away.

“What’s its name?” Zell asked quickly.

“...Ixion.”

“We gotta go find a monster and see what it does!”

“Maybe we should wait until we get back to Garden.  Its weak and there’s no compatibility with it yet.”

“Ugh, fine.  But we’re going straight to the training center.”

Squall rolled his eyes and shouldered his gunblade.  He did want to see what its attack would be, now that he wasn’t on the receiving end of it.  But, as with the other GFs they’d brought back, it would need to be studied and have an entry in the database made before it was allowed to be summoned in the field, or even the training center.

They started the walk back to the Ragnarok, starting to feel tired and heavy as the adrenaline of the fight began to wear off.  As they trudged by the damaged digger, Squall wondered if Esthar would make them pay for it.  Probably not, Ixion had been destroying machinery. 

When they finally reached the Ragnarok, Squall didn’t bother to clean off his gunblade before locking it back in its case with the unused bullets.  Zell tossed his gloves aside and started asking Squall about Ixion’s stats and abilities.  He didn’t know, he hadn’t bothered to check them and didn’t much feel like doing it right now.  He just wanted to try to relax, his muscles felt tense and twitchy from the lightning.  But it didn’t stop Zell from asking, even as Zell this time took the pilot’s seat and started the Ragnarok.

The Garden hadn’t ventured too far from where they’d left, but Squall didn’t want to hear Zell’s endless questioning about the new GF.  Especially when half the questions were ones running through his own mind.  Eventually, he told Zell to just take Ixion and look into it for himself. 

Zell drew it from him and hardly a minute later started going off about it abilities.  Maybe Ixion wouldn’t need to be studied, Zell could just tell the staff all about it.  He tuned Zell out, which Zell was aware, but didn’t care, and wondered where Ixion had come from.

Perhaps, like Brothers, Ixion was guarding something in the Salt Flats and felt that Esthar’s efforts to build a road through were a threat.  That would explain why they hadn’t seen it on their first visit to Esthar.  But there had to be some record of anything even remotely important there.  And nothing of any significance had happened in the area in decades.  At least, not that he knew of.  He’d have to look more into when they returned to Balamb Garden, along with researching the creation of Guardian Forces.  Again.  He was certain they had to study their creation as a part of the exam to be permitted to use them; the GFs probably just erased the memory.

Squall turned to watch the sea sweep by beneath them.  His thoughts shifted then, wondering if any of the high-powered monsters the Garden had been requested to take care of had actually been Guardian Forces.  There had been a number of them that, now in hindsight, whose reports suggested they might’ve been by how they fought. 

_I should go on more missions..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh look an FFX cameo bc its just not helpful to the plot to find a GF you already had


	3. Casual Research

“A new GF?” Rinoa asked, “What does it do?”

“I don’t know yet, but it uses enough lightning to give Quezalcoatl some competition.”

“Where did it come from?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where do any GF’s come from?”

Squall opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came.  He knew he knew the answer, they had to have learned it prior to taking the SeeD exams.

“I... don’t remember,” Squall admitted.

“Well, that doesn’t help,” Rinoa huffed.

“You could always look it up yourself,” Squall suggested.

“Too much like work,” Rinoa dismissed with a smile he could hear, “I’ve got enough stuff to do.”

 “Like what?”

“I was thinking maybe doing some charity work,” Rinoa hummed, “It’s about the only thing I can do that’ll change anyone’s mind.  My dad thinks it’s a good idea too.”

“Not a bad one...”

“Oh, by the way, I have good news for you.”

“Oh?”

“My dad’s gonna be at your next meeting.”

“Really?  It’s about time...”

“I figured you’d say that,” Rinoa laughed.

The standstill on deciding the Gardens’ fate had never been much of General Caraway’s concern.  Until now.  It had started affecting the number of recruits to Galbadia’s military, people were losing interest and faith in their military.  The country had tried a few recruitment strategies to encourage people to enroll or remain at Galbadia Garden, despite it still being grounded, and to continue on to the Galbadian military.  Nothing had worked and it had been decided the only way to renew people’s interest and faith was to put an end to the stalemate.

Squall couldn’t help but smile a bit.  General Caraway would have no disagreements from anyone else representing Galbadia, and he was still confident that he would agree with him.  Trabia Garden didn’t seem to care very much anymore, they just wanted it to be over so repairs could continue and students could return.  This could very well be the last meeting of the sort he’d have to attend.

“And,” Rinoa drawled, “It might even be here.”

Squall snapped out his brief dream of no more meetings.  They’d never been anywhere but Balamb Garden.  Trabia wasn’t an option, and both Balamb and Trabia were wary of Galbadia.  Which the country agreed was rather fair, for now, given recent events.

“Since when?” Squall asked.

“Since my dad said he was going.  He doesn’t wanna travel and thinks having it somewhere else will show progress or something.”

Squall hummed to himself.

“But, it’d mean you’re coming here and I get to see you,” Rinoa sang.

“I guess that’d be alright then,” Squall replied dryly, teasingly.

“You’re a butt,” Rinoa huffed.

“Yet you love me anyway.”

“I question it sometimes,” Rinoa teased.

Squall rolled his eyes.  He heard someone in the background say something to Rinoa, then she said she had to go. 

They said their goodbye’s and Squall leaned back on his bed, closing his eyes for a moment.  It was a good idea to state he’d be out of the office today as well.  He could get some work done undisturbed, and that had been intent this morning, but the idea of simply taking the day off and relaxing was far more enticing.  He laid still a minute longer, before sitting up and deciding to see if the training center staff had gathered all the needed information on Ixion.  He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t curious about this new Guardian Force.

He made his way down to the training center and asked the first staff member he saw.  They were still taking Ixion through a gauntlet of various monster battles, but he was welcome to watch from the ballroom balcony overlooking the training center.  He was assured he’d be able to see Ixion just fine from there. Squall walked away with barely a nod of acknowledgment and an internalized groan of inconvenience. 

Upon reaching the ballroom and rounding the corner to the balcony, he clearly wasn’t the only one wanting to see the new GF in combat.  There were nearly a dozen students crowded at the railing, some standing on their tip toes to see over the others.  Squall tipped his head back with a sigh, debating if it was worth to try to push by the students.  He’d fought the GF, he had first hand experience what it could do.  Except for its summoning attack which, thank Hyne, Zell had interrupted.  He stepped closer, leaning a bit to one side and standing a little higher.  Judging from the charred, still smoldering ground, he’d just missed Ixion’s summoning attack.

Squall frowned and turned on his heels.  It would probably be a little while before they rounded up more monsters.

He walked aimlessly and wondered again where Ixion had come from and, again, where Guardian Forces came from. 

_Well, I do have the day off... May as well see if the library has any books about it._

He took the flight of stairs back down to the main level and made his way around to the library.  There were quite a few students wandering about, looking for books or researching on the computers, more than usual. 

_Must be a test coming up._

Squall found an empty computer and pulled up the library’s search catalog.  He tried a few different key phrases, finally getting a list of relevant books.  Of the eight results, only three weren’t checked out.  Yet.  If there was a test coming up, they might not be on the shelf much longer.  He quickly scribbled out their numbers on a small scrap of paper from the pile between the computers.

One book was missing from its place, the second seemed less relevant as he flipped through a few of its pages.  The last book was more theoretical, bordering on mythology, but it couldn’t be anymore mythological than the story of Hyne’s creation of sorceresses.  He took the book to the front desk to check it out, then retreated back to his dorm.

Squall casually dropped back down on his bed and settled into a comfortable position.  He scanned down the table of contents, choosing to skip the first couple chapters that sounded more like an introduction to what Guardian Forces are and their modern uses.

Guardian Forces appeared shortly after sorceresses.  They were first thought to be exceptionally strong variants of typical monsters, but were later found to be their own species; in a manner of speaking.  Their appearances were far and few between, the list only amounting to what Squall and the team had used. 

Shiva and Ifrit were the first to come into existence.  It was unclear which of them came first, historical accounts of them had been poorly kept over the centuries.  Despite what Squall had assumed, Ifrit was not actually from the Fire Cavern, nor Shiva from the Trabia region.  Rather, the first account of Ifrit placed him near modern day Dollet, _‘a beast born of flame to raze the earth’_.  Shiva was sighted first in the outskirts of Winhill, _‘a nymph encased in ice who wished the same of all life’_.  They stayed in their respective regions for decades, until Shiva suddenly and swiftly left Winhill. 

She roamed the continent, blanketing the land in ice and snow, unable to be stopped.  The snow piled high, enough to cover a standing man, dark clouds dumping snow blotted out the light of the sun.  Shiva was bringing about an ice age and carried on wistfully across the land.  Even Dollet was subjected to her freezing wrath.

Surprisingly, Ifrit did nothing for several years. 

But one day, without warning, he loosed his fiery rage.  All the snow melted, turning into flash flooding in the air without billows plumes of steam rising.  He pursued Shiva, thawing and scorching the earth.  He caught up with her on the Centra continent, not yet buried beneath the new ice age.  She reacted uncaring to his rage, carrying on with freezing the land.  Ifrit was further enraged by her apathy, melting the frozen ground so abruptly the pressure of the steam and ice cracking separated the ground he stood on, then lifting a massive piece of earth.  Ifrit ignited more fire beneath the loose ground, lifting it high into the air.  With a roar of fury, he struck the fiery boulder down in her direction.

It struck Shiva with explosive force, blasting the snow and ice away into a humid, torrential rain.  Shiva remained standing, much to Ifrit’s chagrin, protected in her shell of ice.  She glared at the fiery demon, shattering her protective ice and blasting him with an arctic wind, filled with shards of ice, that refrozen all the water into smooth, rolling waves and trapping him briefly.  The ice shattered, tearing his flesh as the pieces flew about violently.

The two continued to exchange blows all across the world, reshaping land and shifting climates.  Shiva’s arctic wasteland to the northwest was thawed, much to the relief of the few who survived there; and would later come to worship Ifrit.  Ifrit’s sweltering, dry hell was cooled and quenched, leading to gratitude and eventual worship of Shiva.

Decades later, they’d finally exhausted themselves.  Ifrit took rest in the Fire Cavern, not to be seen for centuries.  Shiva slumbered in Trabia, likewise hidden for centuries.  Neither were seen until the dawn of the Garden academies and the first SeeDs who sought them out. 

In the midst of their battles, Quetzalcoatl arrived.  _‘A glorious bird who swooped from thundering skies.’_   Quetzalcoatl avoided their conflict, strangely staying its own home just as Shiva and Ifrit had done.  Years later, it finally left.  Although it still avoided conflict with the warring Guardian Forces, instead it was more helpful to humanity, giving the idea to harness the power of storms and later develop electricity.  Likewise, Quetzalcoatl slumbered for centuries until sought out.

Squall scowled at the pages.  Even bordering on mythological, it still wasn’t telling him what he wanted to know.  He flipped back to the table of contents and looked over the names of the chapters he’d skipped.  He skimmed the first chapter, confirming that it was indeed about what GF’s are and their uses.  The second chapter, however, held some semblance of what he wanted to know.

The appearances of Guardian Forces weren’t entirely at random.  Every Guardian Force appeared alongside a sorceress at some point in her life, though not every sorceress had a Guardian Force.  There didn’t seem to be any indications on what or how it was determined that a sorceress received the GF, but the GF stayed with them until their death.  It was only after their death that the Guardian Force would make itself well known through out the region, bringing either destruction or salvation to humanity until it was either exhausted or subdued.

Of the sorceresses who had Guardian Forces, few of them were particularly noteworthy.  Except for one.

Adel.

She hadn’t exactly received her Guardian Force, it was still being created at the time of her imprisonment. 

Squall flipped through the pages quickly, eyes darting over the blur of words, looking for her name in another chapter.  He found it in the last chapter, this one not at all a myth.  It was a historical account of Adel creating her Guardian Force.  She had claimed only the most powerful sorceresses possessed these beings, despite having no evidence to support the claim, and had set about creating one herself.  She experimented with animals and monsters, casting various curses and spells upon them, but only succeeded in creating variants of monsters seen today. 

Adel had become enraged at the failures.  The most powerful sorceresses had them, and she was the most powerful sorceress of the time, why did she not have one?

She gave up on animals and monsters, at least as the primary focus of her experiments.  It had been suggested to her that, as weapons and fighting had evolved, perhaps an animal would not be the wisest choice.  That she should instead turn her focus on creating a GF more machine like.  A living weapon.

There were a number of failed efforts, but one came out quite successful.  A horrendous locomotive, infused with magic and life, bearing a wailing skull.  She had created Doomtrain.  But she was displeased, nigh on disgusted by the result— No, she hated Doomtrain.  It was weak, unfitting to be her Guardian.  She had it disassembled, its most vital components thrown out.  The pieces Squall and the other had found and put back together.

But she took the results of the successful marriage of life, machine, and magic and ordered a team of researchers to find a way to replicate success but on a much grander scale.  Whether it be a different machine, or a different monster’s life sacrificed and bound to the machine.  They conducted this research far from Esthar, as military tensions began to rise, in a laboratory designated to study both marine life and draw effects. 

They had studied the Gardens and their architecture, their mechanics.  They requested information and results of the crystal pillar that reacted to the moon.  It was nearly two years before they had any positive news for the now tyrannical sorceress.  Believing they now knew what was necessary to create a powerful Guardian Force, one suited for Adel, they sent for her to come to the Deep Sea Research Center.  However, with the Sorceress War well under way and the weaponization of the Lunatic Pandora, Adel declined leaving Esthar.  Rather, instead she sent Dr. Odine, having him bring Para-Magic to bring the theorized GF to life.

She never saw the result.  Adel was sealed away and launched into orbit around the planet.  With her gone, Dr. Odine said it was likely for the best she never met this GF.  For the inspirations of Gardens and its angelic qualities, taken from numerous sacrificed monsters, it was deemed Eden.

Squall reread the last few paragraphs.  Eden was hardly older than himself, and Doomtrain for that matter, the only battle it had ever seen were the ones he’d fought once they’d found it in possession of the Ultima Weapon.

Squall closed the book, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand.  He leaned back, staring up the ceiling and thinking about what he’d read.  He had more questions now than before, raising his curiosity.    Were the other sorceresses responsible for the creation of the other Guardian Forces, in a similar manner?  If that was true, had Ixion been created recently or had it been slumbering for ages?

_No, Ixion has to be old.  The only sorceress now is Rinoa._

His thoughts continued to run in circles, getting him nowhere.  He wanted to stop thinking about it, it was only confusing now; almost frustrating even.  He could feel himself thinking his way to a headache, he needed to do something to distract his thoughts, but he couldn’t even think of a distraction right now.  He could only lay there, scowling at the ceiling and trying to silence his own curiosities.

An hour later, the only thing that was able to pull his thoughts from Guardian Forces and sorceresses was a chime from his phone.  He pulled it from his pocket and saw a notification across the top, informing him of an email.  He tapped on it to open it, first finding he’d been CC’d along with nearly a dozen other people.  He knew immediately it was regarding the rescheduled meeting.  He scrolled past the body of letter, no longer caring what nonsense was said.  He only wanted to know when and where.

At the bottom, the email stated the meeting was in one week and that it would this time be hosted by Galbadia Garden.  Rinoa was right.  Squall sighed and scrolled back up to the list of people who’d also gotten the email.  Most of them were the same, but there were a few new emails he didn’t recognize.  One he assumed to be General Caraway’s, another took him a moment to recognize.  Laguna had been CC’d. 

Squall stared at the email address.  Laguna hadn’t attended a single meeting and, to be honest, Squall was grateful for it.  He didn’t know how he managed to run Esthar, he would believe it if someone told him Laguna was little more than a figure head and it was really his advisors and other lesser political figures that truly ran the country.

He tossed his phone aside and pinched the bridge of his nose, already annoyed.  If he hadn’t given himself a headache thinking about the Guardian Forces, he was certainly giving himself one now thinking about how this meeting was going to go.

The idea of Laguna at the meeting wasn’t as captivating as the creation of Guardian Forces.  His mind had wandered back to that topic after a few minutes.  He tried again not to think about it, this time more successful.  His focus turned to the memories of finding the Guardian Forces, remembering the rage on the faces of some, confusion and surprise on others.

Griever’s face hadn’t expressed any of those.  Even his bellowing roar on being summoned hadn’t sounded completely enraged.  There was something else there, but Squall couldn’t quite place it.  Griever had also barely looked at them their entire fight.  After Ultimecia had junctioned herself to him, he’d kept his head craned up, still avoiding looking at them.

Squall narrowed his eyes, now wondering for the first time what Griever had felt.  He focused harder on the memory, thinking it over several times, but each time Griever became less clear.  Maybe he was overthinking it and losing focus.

_Or maybe I’m forgetting._


	4. Galbadia Garden

Squall sighed and rolled over to look at the clock; 5:57am.  His alarm would be going off in three minutes.  He groaned to himself and let his head fall back against the headboard with a thump.  He didn’t want to get up yet and he certainly didn’t want to be getting up to prepare for a flight to Galbadia.  He closed his eyes just for a second, only to jump back awake a second later.  He glared at the clock, doubting it had really been three minutes.  He hit the top of the clock, silencing it, and got up to get ready.

Thirty minutes later, he was dragging his feet down the hall of the dorms with small duffle bag holding his neatly folded uniform.  He never wore it to these meetings anymore, after several of them everyone had unanimously and wordlessly switched to dressing more casual.  But according to the email he’d received, he was expected to be in full uniform.  Just before exiting the dorms, he caught sight of Quistis, looking equally unenthused and carrying a what appeared to be a similar duffle bag.

Squall stopped and stared at her in confusion.  It didn’t take her long to notice.

“Still not quite awake, hm?” Quistis asked, moving towards him.

Squall shook his head and flicked his towards her bag; it was too early for words.

“Ah, yes.  It seems I’ve been asked to come with you and Headmaster Cid,” Quistis said, “I got the email just the other day.  They wanted an instructor who’s studied Guardian Forces.”

Squall opened his mouth to ask why, but the words fell short and he couldn’t quite bring himself to care.  Quistis picked up on it and turned on her heels, nodding in the general direction of the elevator.  They walked in silence, taking the elevator to the flight deck, and making their way towards the Ragnarok.  Cid came up a moment later on the elevator beside the one they’d taken.  He looked to be more awake and chipper than the both of them.

Cid greeted them brightly and Quistis mustered up enough energy to sound as awake and happy as him; Squall hardly bothered to grumble anything.

“You never were a morning person,” Cid chuckled.

Squall rolled his eyes as they walked onto the Ragnarok.  He intentionally took a seat a bit further from Cid and Quistis, intent on trying to get some sleep, as none of them were the ones flying the airship today.  Instead, it was two cadets who often flew squads off the Garden to their mission locations.  Squall settled back in his seat with a deep breath, falling asleep as the Ragnarok took off from the flight deck.  It would be a while before they reached Galbadia Garden, Balamb had meandered down near the Cetra Ruins.

When they did get close, Quistis got up from her seat and went to wake Squall up.  He swatted her hand away and sat up right, looking around to see they were over Deling City and would be there soon.

As they arrived, Squall noted the outside of the Garden still looked heavily damaged from its battle with Balamb.  But the flight deck was in fairly decent shape, it had been restored enough to look nearly like it had before.  When they landed and stepped off the Ragnarok, there was a small escort waiting to show them to the rooms they’d be staying in.  As they walked, Squall noticed Galbadia Garden looked much nicer than the first time he’d been there.  Most of the metal walls and floors that had been replaced were lighter in color, with warm lines of lights running along them to illuminate the halls.  The Garden center was warmer, more peaceful with water features and brightly colored plants.  Clearly, they were putting more efforts into renovating the interior of the Garden than restoring its halo.

Squall hummed to himself, eyeing the renovations.  It resembled Balamb’s interior.

The escort led them to three separate rooms, though all next to each other, and informed them they would return in a couple hours to take them to the meeting. 

Squall walked into his room, tossing his bag onto the bed and sitting down beside it.  He pulled out his phone to text Rinoa that they’d arrived at the Garden.  She responded a few minutes later, asking what it looked like now.  When he tried to describe it, and failed, she asked him to go take pictures of everything and show her.  He didn’t know why she cared, but it was something to pass the time until he had to get ready for the meeting.  The more he walked around, the more unsettling he found it to be that Galbadia really did seem like it was now trying to mimic Balamb.  Even Rinoa thought so.  After wandering about half the Garden, and getting lost a few times with its redesigned layout, he made his way back to the dorms to get changed into his uniform.

Before Rinoa let him go, she asked him to send a picture.

_[Why?]_

_[Because you never wear it and you look good in it!]_

He rolled his eyes, but indulged her, taking a picture in the mirror that hung from that back of the door.  As soon as he took it, there was a knock at the door that spooked him.  He opened it and was greeted by the escort ready to take them to the meeting.  He sent the picture, silenced his phone and stuffed it in his pocket.

Both Cid and Quistis were already waiting in the hallway.  The three of them followed the escort through the halls, to the elevator that took them up a few floors, and made their way across to another elevator that took them higher up to the room just adjacent to the Garden’s command center.

As they walked in, Squall surveyed the room of who was here.  On the left of the table, the Headmaster and Gardenmaster of Trabia, and their acting commander; they had yet to officially designate a new commander since the loss of the previous one in the missile attack.  At the head of the table, the Headmaster and Gardenmaster of Galbadia, along with General Caraway, and two Galbadian soldiers behind them.  Squall narrowed his eyes suspiciously; soldiers had never been in on the meetings.  On the right of the table sat Laguna, Kiros, and Ward with two Estharian soldiers behind them.

_Guess Esthar and Galbadia still don’t trust each other then._

Laguna glanced up from his conversation with Kiros at the sound of people coming in.  His face lit up immediately upon seeing Squall, who couldn’t help but grimace.  Laguna moved to get up, but Kiros caught his arm and minutely shook his head, silently reminding him this wasn’t a casual gathering.  Squall was grateful for him preventing embarrassment on both their parts.

“Commander Leonhart, Headmaster Kramer, Instructor Trepe,” General Caraway greeted with a nod.

The three of them responded with a nod as well as they sat down.

“Now that we’re all here,” General Caraway started, “I suggest we get straight to the point, as I’m sure most everyone here is tired of this same meeting.”

Cid looked to Squall from the corner of his eye with slight amusement.

“I’ve gone over the notes of previous meetings and I do fully intend this to be the last one,” General Caraway stated, “The Galbadian Headmaster, Gardenmaster, and myself have discussed this and all agreed it would be incredibly foolish to do away with the SeeD program.  That is a point we will not budge on.”

There was a little muttering from Trabia’s side of the table, but nothing that sounded argumentative.  Thankfully, most of the people— idiots, in Squall’s mind— who lobbied for the abolishment of SeeD weren’t in attendance.

“I see there’s also been efforts of compromise, the terms of which we do not agree with either,” General Caraway continued, “To leave only one Garden a military force would create a power imbalance, as other countries would be left with only standard military.”

Laguna folded his hands tightly, scowling petulantly down at the table.  He wanted to say something, but was clearly refraining from it.

“The best course of action, we believe, would be for all Gardens to carry on as if none of this...” General Caraway paused, waving his hand in thought, “Recent event with Ultimecia happened.”

At that, there was louder mutterings and insulted glares from Trabia’s staff.  Did Galbadia really expect them to just forget it was them, under Ultimecia’s command, who destroyed their home and cost hundreds of lives?

“You really expect us to carry on as if you didn’t launch a missile attack that destroyed Trabia Garden and killed hundreds of innocents?” the Trabia commented snapped.

“Perhaps my phrasing was poor,” General Caraway offered, “I meant that all Gardens should continue their operations as before Ultimecia came to our time, not that reparations and amends wouldn’t be made.”

“And what reparations do you plan on making?  So far, you’ve given us nothing in the way of help.”

“For that, we apologize—”

“Ah, pardon my interruption,” Laguna spoke up, “But that’s part of why we wanted to attend this meeting.”

All eyes turned to him curiously.

“We’ve been talking ourselves,” Laguna half-smiled, “And— we would like to make a, um, formal offer to take over the cost and labor of repairs to Trabia.”

“In exchange for Trabia becoming Esthar’s Garden,” Kiros added.

“Right, for becoming our Garden.”

“Why not construct your own?” General Caraway cut.

“Building a Garden is incredibly expensive, especially as we’ve learned all Gardens are capable of mobilizing.  It would be more prudent to adopt one, even one in ruins, than to build an entirely new one,” Kiros replied, “And as you’ve said, we wouldn’t want to create a power imbalance, having two Gardens to one continent.”

General Caraway pursed his lips.

“Consider it our apology for hiding for so long,” Laguna laughed sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head.

“I think I speak for the three of us,” the Trabia Headmaster spoke, “That we greatly appreciate the offer and would love to discuss further terms once the fate of Gardens has been decided.”

“Looking forward to it.”

Squall had to admit to himself that Esthar attempting to acquire Trabia Garden was a considerably bold move.  One he doubted Laguna had come up with, at least, not on his own.  General Caraway cleared his throat, drawing the attention back to their end of the table.

“Back to the matter at hand, as I said, Gardens should resume operations and trainings as prior to the incident with Ultimecia.  A frequent concern, in the notes we received, was that altering the Gardens’ original purpose, although unknown until recently—” General Caraway cast a quick glare to Cid, “—could result in altering the past as we know it by way of changing Gardens’ presence and power in the future.  Can we at least agree on that?”

There was nodding and mumblings of agreement all around the table.

“Good.  Then what remains then, I believe, is only the matter of the White SeeD ship and Balamb’s use of Guardian Forces.”

“So that’s why they wanted me here...” Quistis whispered.

Squall grunted softly in acknowledgment.

“The White SeeD have served their purpose, as far as known, unless there is something else, Headmaster Cid?”

“No, their only mission is to keep Ellone hidden from Ultimecia,” Cid replied tightly.

“Then, with Ellone walking freely now, we are to assume they are no longer needed for this purpose?”

“Yes, you would be correct...”

“The White SeeD should then be absorbed by one of the existing Gardens,” General Caraway suggested, “Perhaps—”

“All due respect, sir,” Squall interrupted, “But shouldn’t a representative of the White SeeD be present if we’re involving them now?”

“Yes, they should,” General Caraway replied through gritted teeth, “If anyone is able to get ahold of them, that is.”

“Balamb is still in frequent contact,” Quistis said.

“Please let them know then there are matters to discuss with them.  Which brings me back to my other topic, Balamb Garden and its use of Guardian Forces.”

“What concerns do you have?” Quistis asked.

“Hardly a year ago, Balamb only had two Guardian Forces, the same as Galbadia.  Technically three, if you consider Ifrit residing nearby and using him in part of SeeD exams.  However, now Balamb is in possession of sixteen— Excuse me, seventeen, given your recent acquirement.”

Quistis wasn’t sure how to respond and instead waited for General Caraway clearly state what his concern actually was.

“These beings are incredibly powerful and dangerous, both to your enemies and to the SeeD using them, is that right?”

“They have become more powerful with our frequent use of them, yes.  Frequent use is something of training for them.  However, I wouldn’t say they’re dangerous to the SeeD using them,” Quistis replied, “We require our students to go through extensive training and research to be permitted to use them.  The only risk is memory loss.”

“I believe that risk is based on studies of a user having only one GF junctioned, am I right?”

“I believe so,” Quistis nodded, “Are you concerned for our students wellbeing, then?  As I said, we require them to conduct research, so they are aware of the risks.”

“It is a part of my concern, but a bigger part is the amount of power students are being permitted to wield.”

“I don’t understand.”

With Galbadia never permitting their students to actually junction either of the GFs they’d had before, they hadn’t been fully aware the extent of abilities and enhanced power that a user could have.  It had been somewhat of a comfort to learn a number of them weren’t permanent, as far as anyone knew, and could only be used when a GF was junctioned.  But General Caraway’s concern, once he explicitly stated it, was that he believed Balamb was using GFs to ‘create’ super-soldier type SeeD.  The amount of strength and power that had been exhibited by Squall and the others had been quite alarming.  A few of Galbadia’s researchers and instructors who supervised their own GF program theorized that all six of them possessed power equal to or greater than a GF.  If Balamb was going to continue collecting Guardian Forces, would they be permitting their SeeD use of multiple GFs to wield the power shown by the six of them.

Quistis, Cid, and Squall all denied that was Balamb’s intention.  The use of multiple Guardian Forces had been a result of necessity and luck.  Several of them they had simply stumbled across, they weren’t seeking them out.  But they hadn’t surrendered the GFs back to Balamb because they needed the power to survive and defeat Ultimecia.  Quistis explained their redesigned storing system and how they allowed their GFs to be used.  Absolutely no one was permitted to use more than one and they were to return it immediately upon completion of their mission.  Everyone complied without complaint and because of the limited use, no SeeD had exhibited any signs of notable memory loss.  In fact, because herself and the others in the fight against Ultimecia had distanced themselves from using the Guardian Forces, they’d slowly begun to recover some memories.

General Caraway hummed and nodded along in acknowledgement, thinking over what she was saying.  When Quistis got the feeling he was at the point of simply waiting for her to stop talking, she quickly finished what she had been talking about.

“So then, would you consider this conference to be one of your ‘high risk’ missions?” General Caraway asked.

“I beg your pardon?” Quistis asked.

“Perhaps I should ask Commander Leonhart.”

Squall tilted his head slightly in confusion as General Caraway stared him down.  A few others looked towards him curiously as well, then his heart skipped a beat as he realized his mistake.  He still had Shiva and Bahamut junctioned and anyone in the room using ParaMagic could have easily used Scan without his knowing and discovered that.  Quistis slid her eyes towards Squall, struggling to keep her expression perfectly neutral, but he knew she was angry.

Squall shifted in his seat, trying to come up with an answer.

“I don’t consider it any riskier than either you or President Loire.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve both brought soldiers into this meeting with you, which no one’s done at any of the other meetings,” Squall clarified, “And I’m gonna assume they’re armed as well.”

“They are only here for defense,” General Caraway stated.

“As are my GFs,” Squall shrugged.

General Caraway set his jaw; Squall could see it in his face that he wanted to question him further.  General Caraway took a deep breath and Squall readied himself to be interrogated. 

Instead, the general reiterated what he’d said at the beginning of the meeting.  The SeeD program was absolutely not going to be abolished and he asked for a decisive vote.  Of course, everyone agreed.  The issue was to no longer be discussed.  Any possible future meetings would be in regard to what was to be done about the White SeeD and checks on Balamb Garden’s collecting and usage of Guardian Forces.  With that, their meeting was ended.

Trabia’s Headmaster, Gardenmaster and acting commander lingered as everyone got up to leave, as did Laguna, Kiros, and Ward.  Both parties were going discuss when there would be further details of Esthar’s offer and conditions.

General Caraway cast a dirty look over his shoulder in Squall’s direction as he left.  Squall paid him no mind and was intent on getting ahead of Cid and Quistis in hopes of avoiding any kind of lecture.  He realized his mistake and, on top of that, he’d made Quistis look like a liar or an idiot by having two junctioned after she’d said no one was allowed to do that, no exceptions.

Thankfully, his stride outpaced Cid and Quistis.  He let out a sigh of relief, but it was only short lived as he heard boots tapping quickly against the hard floor after him.  Quistis grabbed him by the arm and stopped him.

“What is the matter with you?” Quistis hissed.

“I forgot,” Squall defended.

He shook his arm free and continued on, setting a fast walking pace.

“You _forgot_?  What kind of excuse is that?  You remembered not to bring any weapons, but you forgot you had Guardian Forces?”

Quistis had to trot to keep pace with him.

“I know it was stupid, it was accident, I’m just used to having them.”

Quistis stalled for a moment, letting Squall get several steps ahead of her before she ran to catch up to him again.

“Used to having them?” Quistis repeated, “Are you telling me you’ve had them since our fight with Ultimecia?  Who do you have?”

Squall sighed, knowing there was no use in lying.

“Shiva and Bahamut.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“How long have you had them?” Quistis pressed.

Squall said nothing, he just kept looking directly ahead of himself.

“Oh my god,” Quistis groaned, “You haven’t unjunctioned Shiva since your SeeD exam, have you?”

“....”

“And Bahamut?  Let me guess, since we found him in the Deep Sea Research Center.”

“....”

“Squall, I know you’re not stupid, but doing that is _so very stupid_.  That’s something I would expect from Seifer.”

Squall huffed at the insult and walked a little faster, bordering on jog himself now.

“Will you at least tell me why?” Quistis asked.

He barely shook his head as he glanced down at the floor.  Quistis knew him well enough that more or less meant she wouldn’t understand.

“I don’t know why I thought you’d answer,” Quistis sighed, “Then unjunction them.”

Squall looked at her in disbelief.

“General Caraway is already mad you had them in the meeting, you think he’s going to be any less angry with you running around the Garden with them?”

“I’m not staying here tonight.”

“Where— Nevermind.  He’s not going to forgive you just because you’re dating his daughter.  If you want to make peace with him now, you need to unjunction them and let me take them back to Balamb first thing in the morning.”

“He’s already angry, what’s the point?”

“A sign of good faith, Squall.  Plus, you’ve had them so long you need to give your mind a rest.”

Squall grumbled to himself, debating whether or not to listen to her.  As they rounded the corner to the dorms they were assigned for the night, Quistis was beginning to doubt he was going to do it.  Only when they reached their rooms did Squall pause for a moment.  Quistis studied him, discreetly preparing herself to draw.  He sighed and the moment he unjunctioned them, she drew them away.  Squall flashed her a petulant look, but said nothing as he took out his key card and swiped it, letting himself in the room and shutting the door hard behind himself.

“Just when I think you’ve matured...” Quistis mumbled to herself.

She let herself into her room, taking a curious second to see what her compatibility with the two would be.  There was almost none; with Shiva, it might’ve even been worse than before Squall’s SeeD exam.

 

Squall changed out of his uniform into worn jeans, a t-shirt and his usual bomber jacket.  He stuffed the uniform carelessly back into the dufflebag, slung it over his shoulder, and left.  He made his way through the Garden’s halls, taking only a few wrong turns as a result of their renovations and repairs, until he came down to the main entrance.

Just outside, there looked to be a small shuttle service to take students to and from Deling City.  He walked up to the stop where several students were waiting for the next shuttle to arrive.  Hardly any of them even acknowledged his presence, though one of two of them did a double take on seeing him.  He doubted they recognized him, if anything the double take was probably because they didn’t recognize him.

Nobody spoke during the ride, which he was glad for, it was bad enough they were driving over rough and still damaged roads that jostled them around.  Over a few particularly bad patches, several students sitting by the windows, including Squall, smacked their heads against the window.

_Obviously, it’s not just the Garden’s halo that’s getting neglected._

None of them could wait to get off once the shuttle came to a stop at the first station in Deling City.  Squall rubbed the side of his head where he’d hit it twice and could feel a headache coming on.  He tried to ignore it as he started making his way through the city.

As he walked, every step felt like it rattled his brain.  He must’ve hit his head harder than he thought.  Lucky for him, the shuttle had let them off not too far from Caraway Mansion.  He only hoped his luck might continue and that General Caraway wouldn’t be home. 

The gate had been left just slightly open for him; Rinoa had come down earlier and unlocked it.  He pushed it open, wincing at the metal’s shrill protest and loud clatter as it closed behind him.  He made his way up the steps and didn’t bother knocking; if the gate was unlocked, so was the front door.  As he walked in, he was greeted by the smell of something coming from the kitchen.  He followed it in and found Rinoa cooking something on the stove.

“Hey.”

Rinoa glanced over her shoulder.

“Hey!  You’re just in time!” Rinoa smiled.

“For what?”

“Dinner, duh.”

“Since when do you cook?”

 “Well, I’ve had a lot of free time to learn since my dad doesn’t want me going out much.”

“Yeah, he’s an ass like that,” Squall deadpanned, “What’re you making?”

“Chocobo burgers,” Rinoa smiled, “And I’m guessing things didn’t go great?”

“Not great, but not terrible, I guess.”

He dropped his bag by the table and dropped into the chair.  The food didn’t smell bad, but it wasn’t helping his headache now.  Rinoa scooped the burgers out of the pan and dropped them on the buns waiting with their condiments already. 

“You wanna talk about it?” Rinoa offered.

She brought the plates over to the table and set them down.

“I— What is this?” Squall asked.

“Chocobo burgers,” Rinoa repeated, pouting, “Why?”

“Did you patty them yourself?”

“Yes, why?  Hm?’

“Nothing.”

“No, you don’t get to play that game,” Rinoa lightly shoved his shoulder, “What’s wrong with them?”

“They just...look more like sloppy joes,” Squall said, a tiny smile playing at his lips.

“Rude!”

“You asked.”

“Just eat it and tell me about your day.”

He did as he was told, simplifying what happened in the meeting and trying to gloss over the last bit involving Guardian Forces.  It didn’t work as well as he would’ve liked, Rinoa caught onto it and chastised him for having Shiva and Bahamut this entire time.  She also knew when to stop chastising him, least she push it to far and have him shut down for the rest of the night.  But she did agree, from what he said, that her dad was an ass.

After they finished their burgers, which actually turned out tasting better than they looked, Rinoa led him off upstairs to watch a movie that had just come out a few weeks ago she was excited to see.  He’d never heard of it and when she told him what it was about, he couldn’t say it sounded very interesting.  Squall laid back on her bed as she started the movie, then jumped up on the bed and curled up to him.

Not long into the movie, he started falling asleep.  Rinoa tried a few times to keep him awake, but gave up and just snuggled closer, eventually falling asleep herself towards the end of the movie.

 

Squall opened his eyes to see the dry, cracked earth beneath his feet.  He looked up and saw nothing around him but gray haze in all directions, defined only by a slightly darker gray drifting through it like a miasma.  He sighed and dropped his head.  It was this dream again.  He only wondered if this would be one of the times it replayed exactly as a memory, or if he would wander a different way.

Not that he was really able to tell when one or the other happened with the featureless landscape.

He started walking to his left, his boots tapping and scuffing the barren ground.  Part of him had always wondered how far he really did walk, or if he’d have been able to keep going had he not come to the end of the ground.  It had felt like he was only a few steps from his legs falling off.

The haze swirled uncharacteristically, just enough to catch his attention from the corner of his eye.  Squall slowed and watched it settle back into its lazy rhythm.  He narrowed his eyes at it and watched it a second longer before continuing.  He barely took a few steps before the same motion caught his attention again.  The haze swirled and danced, as if something had rushed through it, then settled itself again.  He studied the haze, trying to see if there might be something in it.  Nothing showed itself and the haze resumed shifting idly as it slowly encroached on him, devouring the ground as it did.

Squall turned about, trying to catch any sign that it might be disturbed again.  Nowhere he looked was it agitated, whenever it happened, it was always just from the corner of his eye.  He kept trying to catch it, hardly noticing the edge of the ground was creeping up on him now.

Just as in his memory, a feather drifted down, briefly distracting him.  He held his hand out for it, now wanting the dream to end.  Just as the feather came to rest in his hand, the haze directly in front of him spiraled and parted.  It was coming straight at him.

Squall jumped awake, his heart beating hard.

He took a deep breath, looking around the room and down at Rinoa.  He ran a hand down his face, and tipped his head back against the headboard, his head now throbbing in pain.  That had never happened before, there was never anything there.  He paused in thought for a moment to try to focus on the real memory, just to reassure himself.

_What was that?_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> little bit longer than the first couple chapters, but i really wanted to have the scene with squall and rinoa in this chapter :>  
> but squall, why you keep two GFs junctioned this whole time, hm?


	5. A Single Feather

For three days after returning from Galbadia, Squall was stuck with a persistent headache, restlessness, and an overwhelming sense of weakness.  Even getting out of bed in the morning felt like he was trying to lift something that weighed several hundred pounds, walking felt like he had half a dozen cinder blocks chained to his ankles.  He was fairly certain he knew why felt like this too.  It was withdrawl, of sorts.  He’d become so accustomed to having their power at his back that the inhuman strength felt like his own.  Without them now, he felt like he wouldn’t even be able to lift Revolver.  And the feeling of weakness was what was causing his restlessness.  He was vulnerable, and he needed their power to remind he actually wasn’t.

Zell, Selphie and Quistis had dealt with withdrawal from unjunctioning their Guardian Forces as well, though not to the same extent.  They hadn’t had as many, they didn’t think it was necessary to have more than a few, and certainly hadn’t had them for as long.

Irvine and Rinoa had gotten off nearly scot-free.  Irvine, being from Galbadia Garden, hadn’t been a fan of using GF’s in the first place.  Rinoa had junctioned a few, one or two more than Quistis, only enough to defend herself better, not having the same training as the others.  Once she’d received her powers as a sorceress, she unjunctioned a couple of them.

Squall sat at his desk, anxiously tapping a pen against the wood.  He tried to focus on his work, but he repeatedly caught himself scanning the room and the moving landscape outside, searching for any threats.

_There’s nothing there, calm down._

He squeezed the pen in his hand, forcing himself to stop tapping it.

_Not like you’d be able to do anything anyway._

He started fidgeting it in his fingers, twirling it around.  He needed to do something about this.  He could go down to the training center and take out a few monsters, remind himself that he was strong and he didn’t need the GF’s skills and power.  But the monsters there weren’t fierce, not anymore.  When he’d started training, yes.  They were unnerving, scary, fierce.  They sent young and new students to the infirmary.  But now they were about as intimidating as a spider.  Perhaps less than that even, at least they couldn’t scurry off and hide somewhere in your room.  He’d need something more challenging than what the training center offered.

Then Squall had an idea.  He opened up the list of missions awaiting assignments and searched through for something he could do on his own, but would be challenging enough to justify taking at least one GF from the armory.  Just one.

He found one mission, just outside Dollet.  There were a couple behemoths hanging around outside the town that they weren’t able to get rid of.  While the monsters weren’t coming into to town and wreaking havoc, they were causing quite a problem with the trains trying to come in or out.  They left passenger trains alone, for the most part, and were mostly interested in the trains carrying food in.  They’d knocked cars off the rails and eaten all their contents. 

Squall was confident he could take care of them, trying to reassure himself he could do it without a Guardian Force.  But he wasn’t always the best at reassurance, especially with himself. 

He accepted the mission and got up, telling Xu he was going to take care of it and would be back soon.  He knew they were somewhere near the island of Balamb, it wouldn’t take too long to get there. 

Squall went down to his dorm to grab his gunblade and found that he’d been right about picking it up.  Lifting the case, he felt like his arm was going to pop out its socket, despite the fact he was actually moving it with relative ease.  He then headed straight for the armory and simply told the clerk he needed a GF.  He didn’t care which one.  He filled out the paperwork, grumbling inward that somehow Quistis would find out about this and lecture him again. 

_I have a legitimate reason though._

The clerk offered him Brothers.  He wasn’t particularly fond of the peculiar minotaurs, but he wasn’t going to complain.  He drew him from him crystal and set off the flight deck.  The Ragnarok hadn’t yet been prepped for take-off, the flight crew had only just gotten a notification for a couple minutes ago.  Squall would’ve been fine taking any of the other smaller aircrafts, but the crew seemed to be under the impression that he and the others used only the Ragnarok exclusively.  He waited patiently as they readied the airship, already feeling better as he preoccupied himself with re-familiarizing himself with the skills and power Brothers offered.  The gunblade case started to feel like its more normal weight in his hands now.

Once the ship was ready and he was seated in the pilot’s seat, it was only a matter of minutes from take off before Dollet came into view.  He circled the ship around, bringing it down in a field, away from the train tracks.  He hadn’t seen either of the behemoths from the sky.  If the behemoths weren’t out now, maybe they only came when the trains were attempting to leave or arrive.  If that was the case, he’d need to know when the next one was leaving.  The mission had been requested by the mayor of Dollet, so Squall made his way into town.

It didn’t take long to find his way to the town hall, where he spoke with the receptionist and told her he was there to take care of the monsters.  The lady went to fetch the mayor and returned a few minutes later with a man who resembled Cid.

“I was starting to think SeeD were never going to come,” the mayor laughed.

“We’ve got a lot of requests, and not as many soldiers as before,” Squall shrugged.

It was true, part of the problem of the back log of missions was that the Garden had yet to replace the number of SeeD lost in the battle against Galbadia, either by death, medical discharge, or ‘abandonment’.

“Well, I’m sorry to tell you that it looks like the problem’s taken care of.”

“What?”

“Thinking we weren’t going to get any help, we decided to try again to get rid of them,” the mayor said, “Offered ten thousand gil to whoever came up with the idea that worked.  And the one that did, I’ll be damned.”

“What did you do?” Squall asked.

“Sent a couple small mining carts of food out, fresh roasted chocobo, barbecued mesmerize, and the like,” the mayor explained, “Lure the monsters out and, uh... Hit them with a train armed with a snowplow.”

Squall couldn’t hide his expression of disbelief at the stupidity of it.

“I know, I know.  I had the same face when someone suggested it.  Believe me, it was the last thing we tried,” the mayor defended, “Killed the smaller behemoth though, haven’t seen the other one since.  We decided to wait on cancelling the request in case it came back, but...”

The mayor shrugged apologetically.

“You’re welcome to go hunting for it, if you find it and kill it, we’ll still pay you,” the mayor offered.

“I’ll look around for it for a bit,” Squall sighed, “But if it hasn’t been around, I probably won’t look very hard.”

“No worries, if it does come back after you leave, we’ll just hit it with another train,” the mayor laughed.

The mayor thanked him for coming and Squall compulsively apologized that they hadn’t been able to get someone to help them sooner.  The mayor just waved it off, honestly not upset by it.

_So this was a waste of time._

As he walked back towards the Ragnarok, he started thinking about Brothers.  They had been actual guardians of a king.  Perhaps there would be an actual record of their creation and appearance.  Squall decided when he got back to the Garden, he’d look to see if he could find anything about the Unknown King.

Squall broke from his thoughts when he heard a distant growl.  He stopped and looked around, searching for the source.  To his left a ways, at the bottom of the hill, was the other behemoth the mayor had mentioned.  Even from where he stood, Squall could tell it wasn’t strong.  If anything, it was either a young one that hadn’t quite gotten muscular yet or it was a fully grown behemoth that was emaciated.  Squall shielded his eyes from the sun and squinted in an effort to get a better look.  The monster cautiously moved closer, upon seeing him.

It was an emaciated adult behemoth. 

_That’s why they were attacking trains with food.  That’s...kind of sad._

Squall sighed as he debated what to do.  He could leave it to do as it wanted, or needed, and the townspeople could take care of it.  It was a little surprising they hadn’t been able to kill it though.  On the other hand, he could put it out of its misery.  Coming this close to a town was uncharacteristic of such a monster, which meant the town’s food supplies were a last resort.  While he thought a minute longer about what to do, the behemoth had already made its decision.

The monster bellowed and ran towards him.  Squall flinched in surprise, but didn’t hesitate to draw his gunblade and cast aura on himself.  The least he could do was to put it down quickly.  Squall raised his gunblade up, feeling the adrenaline of the spell coursing through him.  A strong breeze swept down, blowing the grass below out in all directions, as a pale, glittering aura gathered around the blade.  The behemoth was undeterred and swung its head madly, its long horns grazing the ground, as it roared.

The aura shot skyward, forging itself to resemble a massive blade.  Squall brought the blade down without another thought, cleaving the behemoth almost perfectly in half, the blaze of the ethereal blade instantly cauterizing its body, and scorching the ground in a straight, broad line.  A weak cry of pain was barely audible over the attack. 

He felt bad for the monster, it had been suffering, but seeing its lifeless body lying defeated and dead brought a sort of guilty pride.  It was a behemoth, one of the toughest monsters and he’d killed it without much help from Brothers, reassuring him he wasn’t as weak as he’d felt earlier.  But then again, it was a pathetic behemoth.

Squall stared at it pitifully for a moment before continuing on his way back to the Ragnarok.  He wasn’t going to bother telling the mayor and would just write the mission off as no longer necessary.  It was a bit of pain to do, but this wasn’t worth the pay.

 

When he returned, Xu asked him how the mission had gone and he grumbled that it was no longer needed.  She didn’t think anything of it, shrugging it off and commenting that at least he got to go out for a bit.  He sat down at his desk and started working on writing it off.  Every mission that wasn’t completed required a detailed report of why.  Norg, and even Cid, demanded to know every little detail and reason as to why the Garden lost out on a contract.  Squall wrote out the explanation the mayor had given him and, as for the second behemoth, he put that he’d found it dead of starvation.

He continued working on paperwork and assigning squads to various missions, logging the reports of completed missions, and reviewing the list of potential SeeD cadets.  Exams were coming up soon and, since Ifrit was no longer residing in the Fire Cavern and the Garden was mobile, the exams had been revamped and only a limited number could be permitted to take the exam.  It was his job to decide who in the class had the highest potential.

Hours later, he remembered he hadn’t returned Brothers to the armory.  Their presence had had him feeling more like himself from days before.  It couldn’t hurt to wait a little longer to return them.  He’d go to the library, look for something about the Unknown King, and return them on his way back to his dorm. 

He finished the report he was working on and made his way down to the library, wondering how he was going to search for this particular king.  There were hundred of unknown kings, calling the dead kings by their name brought bad luck, supposedly.

When he reached the library, he decided to start with searching Galbadian kings.  Dozens of results came up, with the estimated years they reigned, but almost none of them had names.  He went through the results, looking to see if they said where the king had been buried.  Eventually, after skimming several biographies, he found one listed as buried in a tomb just outside Deling City.  This king has ruled nearly a hundred years ago, and his reign lasted his entire life.  A life lived longer than previous kings due to his guardians; two sibling minotaurs.  The search result didn’t offer him much more information, instead giving a book’s call number. 

Squall scowled at the computer.  He didn’t mind doing research with books, but sometimes he thought it would be nice if the library would upgrade their computers and systems to give actual internet search results, rather than just their catalog of books.

He got up and went to the aisle the computer had said, finding a collection of encyclopedias detailing Galbadia’s history.  He picked out the volume that held the story of the Unknown King.  Squall flipped through the pages as he walked over the nearest chair and table.  He sat down, skimming over the pages detailing the king’s reign.  When he’d come to be of marrying age, then still a prince, his parents had attempted an arranged marriage.  He resisted the idea and set about his own way of finding a wife.  He roamed the country, stopping in random villages in search of a beautiful woman.  He’d found such a woman in a coastal village, but her family refused to allow her to be married to him.  The prince asked if there was anything he could do to change their minds and they responded that if he killed the witch further up the coast, they would agree.

The prince ventured up the coast in search of witch, expecting a wretched old woman.  Rather, he found a woman more beautiful than the one he’d met in the village.  He scarcely made two steps towards her before two minotaurs charged out of nowhere, standing protectively between himself and the witch.  He dropped his weapons and spoke to her in earnest.  The witch ordered the minotaurs to stand aside and listened to what the prince had to say.

The prince never returned to the coastal village, but instead returned home with the witch and her guardians.  They fell in love and were married, but never had children.  In her forties, the witch had succumbed to an illness incurable by magic and passed.  Just before her passing, she charged the two minotaurs with protecting her husband, the king.  They protected him as fiercely as they had her, having come to love him just as much, and continued to carry on their given task even after his death.

Squall closed the book a little more harshly than he’d intended.  That hadn’t given him anything about where they’d come from, other than once again a GF was associated with a sorceress.  He returned the book to its place on the shelf and left.

On his way to the armory, he hesitated.  He knew he needed to surrender the GF, especially if he wanted that perceived feeling of weakness to go away and feel normal again.  But the thought of feeling so weak and helpless again... What could overnight hurt?  He walked past the armory, deliberately not even glancing at the walkway leading to it.

Once he reached his dorm, he pulled out his phone and sent Rinoa a text.  A few minutes later, his screen lit up with her face beside a ringing phone.

“Hey.”

“Hey...” Rinoa replied.

“Something wrong?”

“Today just... it sucked,” Rinoa admitted, “My dad had me doing another one of those ‘look how good the sorceress is!’ type things and it just didn’t go well.  At all.”

“What happened?”

“I was supposed to be volunteering at the hospital, sort of, I didn’t know exactly what I was doing.  And it was kinda funny at first,” Rinoa gave a short laugh, “But when I walked into this one room, with a mom and her sick son, she just got immediately all kinds of mad at me.”

“Why?”

“That’s what I wanted to know, all I had done was walk in the room!  So I asked her and... she just started going off that I was letting people suffer because I could help them and I wasn’t.  And I tried to tell her that wasn’t true, that my magic isn’t much better than para-magic and if a spell can’t help someone then I definitely can’t—”

“Hey, hey take a breath,” Squall interrupted.

Rinoa was quiet for a second and he heard her sniffle softly.  Not for the first, he felt guilty he wasn’t there.

“I was just trying to help and do something nice and she just didn’t get that there’s some things magic can’t fix, I’m not a wizard.”

Squall bit back a comment pointing out that a wizard was arguably the same as a sorceress.

“And after I left, I tried not to let it bother me, but it seemed like every room I went into after that, everyone was thinking it.”

“They weren’t, I promise.  Normal people wouldn’t think that, she’s probably just stressed out and scared or something.”

“But that doesn’t make it okay to treat someone like that!”

“Of course not,” Squall agreed, “She just wanted someone to blame and you walked in at the wrong time.”

“Yeah, lucky me...”

“Maybe you should just get out of Deling for a little bit.”

“Squall Leonhart, are you asking me on a date?” Rinoa teased.

He could tell by her voice she was still upset, but having the prospect of taking a break from Deling City was lifting her mood.  That, and teasing him.  She knew how awkward it made him to be called out on anything even slightly romantic.  The following giggle he heard told him she probably knew there was a light blush creepy over his face and he was suddenly too hot in his usual jacket.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Rinoa laughed.

It was good to hear her laugh.

“Did you have somewhere in mind?”

“Not exactly...” Squall mumbled.

“Well, you’d better come up with something good and surprise me.”

“I’ll try not to disappoint,” Squall replied with a sigh.

“You rarely do,” Rinoa sang.

If there was anyway he could’ve denied blushing before, it was gone now.  He thanked Hyne he was alone in his dorm where no one could see him.

Rinoa made a joke about short-circuiting him, again, which Squall did his best to pull himself together enough to deny it.  She didn’t believe him.  But she did decide she was going to go take a bath to wash the day off and go to bed. 

They said their goodbyes and Squall settled onto his bed, picking up the library book he’d borrowed a few days ago.  He flipped through the pages, looking for something about Brothers.  The book still didn’t say exactly how GF’s were linked with sorceresses, but it would expand more on the story that had been in the encyclopedia.  After several minutes of reading, it was clear it offered even less than the encyclopedia.  The book hardly mentioned the ‘witch’ at all, noting only that he married her.  Then the Brothers appeared afterwards.  Squall frowned at the book and set it aside.  He’d read more of it later and if it still didn’t give any insight, it was going back to the library.

He shifted his thoughts to what he and Rinoa could do to get her out of Deling City for a little while.  It would probably depend on where the Garden was at the time, which made things difficult to plan. 

_Maybe Winhill, she thinks it’s a cute town..._

Without really thinking it, he could also visit his mother’s grave.  He let out a breath and rolled over, trying to chase the image of the headstone out of his mind and think about something else.  Other places they could go.  It’d be nice to go back to Balamb, or maybe visit the Salt Flats and stay in Esthar.  A big city might not be the best idea if she was trying to get away from a big city, but at least Esthar had gotten over its jaded attitude towards sorceresses and the outside world.  He kept thinking of various places they’d been, but hadn’t gotten to enjoy because of pressing circumstances, until he fell asleep.

 

He was surrounded by the hazy void again, although this time the ground around him had already deteriorated and left him on a small island.  He huffed to himself and dropped to sit roughly.  There was nothing he could, even if this was different from memory.  He watched the haze oscillate lazily around him, shifting his position every now and then for comfort.  Any moment now, a white feather should make its way through the haze down to him.  He hoped it wouldn’t.  The feather always brought with it the illusion of Rinoa standing ahead of him in the promised meadow, unable to hear him, then distorted images of her face in dozens of memories, each less clear than the previous.  Only the horrifying image of Rinoa’s helmet shattering in space right before his eyes was crystal clear.  It wasn’t any less bone-chilling and heart-stopping, no matter how many times he saw it.

The haze was again disturbed by something moving through it, this time in front and above him; where the feather should come from.  Squall tensed and waited for whatever it was to come swooping down at him.  But nothing came out at him.  The haze gave a slight twitch and the silhouette of a small feather appeared.

_I don’t want to grab it..._

It drifted down closer, though its color didn’t get any lighter as it made its way through the haze.  Rather, its color deepened.  Squall knitted his brows together in confusion, instinctively holding his hand out for the dark feather.  It settled down in his palm and he closed his fingers around it.  He expected it to do the same as the white feather had.

Nothing happened.

He opened his fingers, tilting his head curiously at it.  He shifted his hand to hold it by its hollow shaft, bringing it closer to study it.  It didn’t look as soft as the white one, this one had been damaged.  He lifted his other hand and stroked the coarse looking vanes.  They fanned out from his fingertips one at a time, like a healthy feather, rather than in clumps.  Keeping the feather in hand, Squall worked the glove off his free hand to feel it.  He touched the vanes again, finding it soft and smooth as silk.

“Curious boy.”

Squall nearly jumped out of his skin.  He scrambled to his feet, almost stepping off the edge in his haste as he whipped around.  On the other side of the island, Ultimecia stood proudly with a look of idle interest on her face.

“The legendary SeeD, powerful and destined to defeat me, sitting here and feeling so weak and helpless.”

“This isn’t real,” Squall said, more to himself.

“Oh, but it is,” Ultimecia smiled cruelly.

Squall shook his head, sliding his foot back and feeling his heel dip off the edge of the ground.

“Don’t worry, I’m not here to harm you,” Ultimecia hummed, “I’m here to...help.”

“With what?”

“You want to know where Guardian Forces come from,” Ultimecia said, “You want to find Griever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took a little while to update, I had most it written but then I didn't like it so I scrapped it a couple weeks ago and then didn't realize how long it had been so actually I wrote this in the past few days :x anyways it's time to get the plot moving a bit more!


	6. Sleepless in B-Garden

_This is just a dream._

“I think ‘nightmare’ would be more fitting, given your current feelings, don’t you think?”

Squall’s mouth fell open in surprise and worked uselessly a few times.  She stepped forward, clawed feet and tattooed legs appearing from within the shadow of her crimson gown.  The black feathers of her wings fluttered lightly in a breeze he couldn’t feel.  He had nowhere to go. 

“This is all in your head,” Ultimecia pointed out.

_Wake up, wake up!_

“Oh, dear boy, you won’t wake up until we’ve had a little talk,” Ultimecia laughed, “But don’t worry, we won’t talk for long tonight.”

“What do you want?” Squall barked, “Why are you here?  _How_ are you here?”

“Simply to help you find Griever,” Ultimecia replied, “As for how, have you forgotten already who I am and what I’ve done?”

“I could never forget,” Squall ground out.

“Then you needn’t ask.  But I can see it on your face you truly don’t know.  Time is a fickle thing, time compression even more so.”

She came closer to him and Squall stepped along the edge, keeping his body facing her, in an effort to keep distance from her.  Ultimecia laughed softly, watching him in amusement.  She raised a sharp, violet bound finger and tapped the air between them.  His body stopped moving, frozen mid-step.

“It’s rude to walk away from a conversation,” Ultimecia mock-pouted.

Squall couldn’t speak, no part of his body would move.  She closed the space between them, raising her hand once again and brushing a stray lock of hair away from his eyes.  Her golden eyes bored into his steel blue ones, studying them intensely.  Her eyes were soft for a moment, something alarming deceptive to see on her face.  The softness remained for only a moment before she tipped her head back, restoring her prideful and cruel demeanor.

“Let me start by telling you a little something about Griever,” Ultimecia spoke, “He never wanted to be found.  And he never was.  He made an appearance when he wanted to, then disappeared again.”

_What?_

Her hand, which had been hovering by his face, moved down to delicately take the Griever pendent in her fingers.

“He was a... rather unconventional Guardian Force,” Ultimecia hummed, “Where others stayed faithfully by a sorceress’ side until death, he would have nothing to do me.  I would say ‘nor any other sorceress’, but there were none left in our time.”

She released the pendant; it struck his chest harshly.

“You’ve been trying to uncover how the Guardian Forces are made, correct?”

He still couldn’t speak.

“You were onto something a few days ago, wondering if sorceresses had something to do with their creation.  They do.  We need them to protect ourselves.  As you know, we aren’t well loved.”

_Threatening a reign of terror doesn’t earn you any points._

“No need for snide comments,” Ultimecia chastised, “I’m only trying to help you.”

She stood back and folded her arms, looking at him as if expecting an apology.  He wasn’t sure if his expression was conveying anything, but he hoped she could feel the defiance and refusal to apologize.

“Obstinance will get you no answers,” Ultimecia stated, “I would suggest a good night’s rest to fix your attitude, but well...  Perhaps we’ll speak another night.”

She turned sharply, a handful of black feathers dislodging from her wings.  She took long strides across the island, walking back to where she’d first appeared, and continued walking off the edge.  She didn’t falter, nor raise her wings.  She only vanished into the hazy void.  

Squall fell forward with his aborted movement, only for everything to fade to black before he struck the ground.

He awoke with a violent start, tangling himself in blankets and falling off the side of the bed.  He stumbled to his feet and looked around the room in a panic.  Once he recognized his own room, he started to calm down.

_Just a dream. A bad dream._

He felt a cool caress on the side of his face, where Ultimecia had brushed his hair aside, and shuddered.  He rubbed at the spot to make the feeling go away, then leaned forward to pick up the pile of blankets.  As he did, he was overcome with the unsettling feeling that he wasn’t alone.  He twisted around, searching for any sign that anyone had managed to sneak into his dorm.  He crept around his dorm, checking everything, but nothing had been disturbed.  He ran a hand through his hair and walked over to the window.

The Garden was passing by Balamb Island, but apart from the small cluster of lights from the town, there was nothing outside either. 

Squall sat down on the side of his bed, resting his head in his hands and trying to convince himself to lay down and go back to sleep.  But Ultimecia’s appearance, her voice, her _touch_ had felt too real.  His body refused to relax enough to even lay down, let alone sleep.

After several minutes, he got up and decided to go for a walk around the Garden.  At this hour, no one was wandering about.  Not even staff.  All the lights were at a quarter of their usual brightness, only the fountain, also running at a lower rate, made any sound.  The Training Center, cafeteria, library, infirmary, and quad were all closed off and dark.  But the peaceful emptiness and quiet couldn’t settle him as it normally did.  He’d intended to return Brothers in the morning, but now that wasn’t going to happen.

He walked in laps around the Garden’s base level, constantly checking every shadow that seemed a little too dark and starting every time a fountain went silent for a moment, then gurgled abruptly as water pressure changed.  He was too on edge and he knew it.  He wished the Training Center was open twenty-four hours a day, then maybe he could work some of this out.  He stalled for a minute as he thought about that. 

_No, that’d be worse.  All the monsters lurking around and trying to stalk me..._

He kept walking until weak, early dawn sun began to filter through the skylights in the high ceiling.  It would only be a couple hours now before he was supposed to start working.  He knew he should try to get some sleep, if only an hour or two, but the fear in the back of his mind wouldn’t allow it.  Instead, he returned to his dorm only long enough to shower and get dressed before heading towards the cafeteria for breakfast.

 

Squall was barely able to keep his eyes open as he sat at his desk.  He’d started to nod off several times, only to jerk awake again.  He rubbed his eyes, mentally chastising himself for deciding to stay awake rather than try to sleep.

He clicked through emails, deleting most after reading a sentence or two.  The majority were minor updates about what was going on in the Garden.  One that did manage to catch his attention, however, was from Selphie.  She’d sent an email, that extended well beyond the length of the screen, updating him about Trabia Garden.  Now that he thought about it, it was a little odd he hadn’t heard anything.  He skimmed over her email, too tired to read it in earnest.

The vast majority of Trabia’s remaining repairs had been completed and now the Estharian reconstruction team was working on mobilizing the Garden to have it moved closer to Trabia.  According to Selphie, the Garden had never looked so beautiful, it would shame Balamb and Trabia now.  On top of that, so many people had wanted to enroll in the newly renovated Garden that they now had a waitlist a mile long.  Laguna stopped by when he could, much to her delight, to check in on things and try to help out a bit, but of course would mess something up or break it.

_Idiot._

The Garden’s new halo was to be completed in about a month and the Garden to moved to the city’s outskirts only a few weeks following that.

Before he read anymore, a new email alerted itself to him; marked high priority.  He clicked on it and found it had been sent not only to him, but all the headmasters, Gardenmasters, commanders, and other higher up staff.

A team from Galbadia Garden had uncovered ruins on the Centra continent that were once home to a powerful Guardian Force, according to some of the writings they had found at the site.  The team believed that the GF was still somewhere nearby, slumbering, and that since they were the ones to find it, they had rights to it.  Squall couldn’t argue that, that was generally how it worked.  But what irked him was the bolded sentence instructing Balamb, specifically, to stay away from the site and send no teams to attempt to find and subdue the GF.

He wanted to respond they weren’t in the business of stealing findings or Guardian Forces, but stopped himself when he remembered Cerberus and Alexander.  They had been stolen.  He could justify it, but anything he had to say would likely only serve to upset Galbadia.  Instead, he settled for rolling his eyes and sighing.

“Did you just read that email?” Xu called.

“Yeah.”

“They do know nothing’s ever stopped them from collecting Guardian Forces before, right?”

“Mmhmm.”

He waited a moment to see if he’d receive any CC’d responses.  A short time later, there was a few acknowledgments from Trabia Garden and several exchanges between them and Galbadia, but no one from Balamb said anything.  There was a tiny smile playing at Squall’s lips, as he imagined everyone from Balamb who’d received the email sharing the same reaction as either himself or Xu.

On the subject of Guardian Forces, now that he was thinking a little more calmly, he decided he should return Brothers to the armory before anyone caught on he hadn’t done so yet.  Plus, getting up and moving around might help him to wake up more.  He pushed back from his desk and walked towards the hall, muttering to Xu he’d be back shortly.

Even standing in the elevator, he caught himself still starting to nod off.  He shook his head and redoubled his efforts to focus on staying awake.  The doors pinged and slid open on the second floor.  For a second, Squall had wondered if he’d pressed the wrong button by mistake.  But once they opened all the way, they revealed Quistis, who looked surprised to see him as she stepped on.

“Little early to call it a day, isn’t it?” Quistis teased.

“Just taking a break,” Squall mumbled.

As the doors closed and the elevator resumed, Quistis turned to say something to him and immediately noticed how exhausted he was.  It wasn’t the first time he’d looked like he hadn’t gotten any sleep, but it had been months since the last time.

“Didn’t get enough sleep?”

Squall shook his head.

“Something keep you up?” Quistis ventured.

“It’s nothing.”

Quistis frowned at him.  Squall glanced over at her, narrowing his eyes at her expression.

“What?”

“You’re lying,” Quistis stated.

“I’m not,” Squall huffed, “I said ‘it’s nothing’, not ‘no, nothing’.”

Quistis took a breath and folded her arms.

“It’s nothing,’ Squall repeated, “Just couldn’t sleep.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Quistis offered.

“No, why would I?”

The doors pinged again, letting them both off on the first floor.  Squall stepped ahead without waiting for her answer.

“Well, the last night you looked this sleepless was just after we returned from fighting Ultimecia...”

His eye gave an involuntary flinch, which he was glad she was still a step behind and missed.  She was right, though.  He had still had nights he dreamt of their fight against her, against Adel and Edea, of nearly losing Rinoa... The first few weeks they had been back, he didn’t sleep much, if at all at times.  The dreams were far too real and he was constantly on edge that their battle wasn’t truly over.  Some of them had tried to talk to him, but to very little success.  Even Rinoa.  He walked around with exhaustion and anxiety all over his face and in his movements.  But he must be showing that again now.

“I’m fine,” Squall said, more for himself, “I just couldn’t fall asleep is all.”

“You’ve always been good at skirting conversations,” Quistis sighed, “If you change your mind, you know you can talk to me.”

The way he looked at her, a small part of her thought he might admit something.  But all she got was a nod and a grunt of acknowledgement.  Quistis turned her eyes towards the high ceiling, shaking her head slightly.  Old habits die hard.

She said goodbye, receiving only a halfhearted wave as she turned off towards the library.  Squall continued on to the armory.  Once the clerk there saw him, he fixed him with a scowl that clearly conveyed what the clerk was thinking.  It was only a question of whether the clerk was feeling either brave enough or had no patience left for him if he would voice his thoughts.

The clerk turned and walked around a corner as Squall approached, disappearing for a few minutes.  He then returned with a crystal, whose base had a small plate with ‘ _Brothers’_ engraved on it.

“You’re late,” the clerk snipped.

Squall responded with a tired glare as he unjunctioned the Guardian Force and returned it to its crystal.  The stone went from a normal glittery appearance to having an ethereal glow once the Brothers were inside it.  Squall turned on his heels, walking away quickly before the clerk had a chance to say anything further.  As he left, he felt the same sense of weakness and vulnerability begin to return.  Combined with the still lingering sense of anxiety from his dream last night, he knew it was going to feel worse.  But it did make him feel more alert and awake now.

He returned to his office, sitting back down at his desk and finding that Cid had responded to the email.  He simply stated that Balamb Garden and all its SeeD would refrain from coming near the site, per Galbadia’s wishes, but should they need any help, Balamb would be willing.

Squall hoped they would need help and that they wouldn’t be so stubborn as to refuse their offer.  If there were writings of a powerful Guardian Force having been in the area, if it was still alive...

_What if it’s Griever?_

He found himself tensing up at the thought.  The idea that it might be Griever gave way to a sudden paranoia that this would be the start of Ultimecia rising to power.  Galbadia helped her once, they would do it again.  And they would be successful if they had Griever.  She’d be able to become the threat she was.

_Stop it.  That’s not true._

Squall grumbled to himself in his own frustration at this paranoia.  Ultimecia’s words echoed in his head, that Griever would have nothing to do with her.  As unsettling as it was to be able to hear her voice to clearly, it was also something of a relief. 

_But why then... Why did he help her fight us?_

Once again, he found himself thinking about how Griever seemed to refuse to look at any of them.  But his thoughts were interrupted when he realized Xu had been talking to him.  He worked quickly to piece together, from what she was saying now, to figure out what she had been talking about.

The SeeD exams.

They were coming up in a couple weeks and it was part of his job to oversee them.  What Xu was talking about, more specifically, was what the test was going to be now that Ifrit no longer resided in the Fire Cavern.  There had been various suggestions form the examination staff, one of which had been to temporarily release Ifrit back in the cavern and then subdue him once exams were over and return him to the armory.  Another was to capture wild, high powered monsters and either have the potential SeeD fight them in the field or bring them into the Training Center, dependent on what the monster was.

Bringing strong monsters into the Garden wasn’t the best sounding idea.  There was a reason most of the monsters in the Training Center were lower to moderate strength monsters.  But having the students battle the high-power ones in the field would be a good idea.

The other suggestion was to send on them on real SeeD missions, albeit not high-risk ones.  Squall wasn’t fond of that suggestion either.  Those who had requested help from the Garden were expecting SeeD, regardless of their request, not potential SeeD.  Plus, a failure could ruin future contracts and their reputation.

“I’ll have to think about it—”

“Squall, we need to give Cid and Norg an answer by tomorrow,” Xu said.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, cursing himself for not having been more on top of the issue.

“I’ll have an answer then,” Squall breathed, “It’ll either be a temporary release for Ifrit or contained high-power monsters in the field.”

Xu nodded and returned to her desk.  He assumed she was letting Cid and Norg know, or else contacting some of their field teams to be on the lookout for worthy monsters.  The easier option would probably to let Ifrit back into the Fire Cavern.  It was traditional and students knew what they were getting into.

_But that’s not always how life is..._

He’d think about it overnight.  For now, he piles of reports that he’d hardly even looked at.

 

Towards the end of the day, at some point, Squall had decided on another break and was sitting in his chair, his head propped up by his fist and eyes closed.  He wasn’t quite asleep, but he certainly wasn’t awake.  Xu had watched him for a couple minutes, waiting to see if he’d jerk awake again.  She knew he was tired and a little grumpy, but she couldn’t help but giggle every time he had done that all day.  When he didn’t, she decided maybe she should wake him and just tell him to go get some real sleep. 

As soon as she moved to get up, Squall’s phone rang and startled him.  He struck the desk with knee, hard, and instinctively smacked his phone off the desk with a fierce glare.  Then he blinked, realizing what he’d done, and held his head in his hands for a moment before retrieving his phone from the floor.  Xu covered her mouth to hide her smile.

He picked it up, turning it over slowly, fearing he’d cracked it.  He let out of breath of relief when the screen showed Rinoa’s picture, uninterrupted by any cracks.  He thought about letting it go to voicemail, he did have work he needed to catch up on.  He had no idea when exactly he’d dozed off.

“Just be done for the day,” Xu called over to him.

He stared at her in mild confusion.

“Seriously, go.  You’re not getting much done anyway,” Xu smiled.

Squall slumped his shoulders; she was right.  He stepped around the desk, muttering an apology as he walked by.  She waved it off.  His phone was on its last ring as he stepped out of the office and the doors closed behind him.

“Hello?”

“Hey, sound like you just woke up,” Rinoa teased.

“Sorta did.  What’s up?”

“When are we gonna have our little mini-vacation?  My dad’s lining up some more PR crap.”

Squall hummed to himself, rubbing his face.  He hadn’t gotten past even where they should go.

“Umm...  Well, when do you wanna go?”

“This is your plan,” Rinoa replied.

“That doesn’t help.”

“It doesn’t matter to me, all that crap can be scheduled around it.  You’re the one who has an actual job to do.”

“Alright, fine, uh... Next week?” Squall suggested.

It was better to go before the SeeD exams.  He’d have a lot more work to do once they were completed, and it was all work he couldn’t afford to be behind on it.  Promoting the students to actual SeeD was an overcomplicated process on his end and they needed more SeeD as soon as possible to keep up with the number of contracts.

“Alright, next week then!  Where are we gonna go?”

“...It’s a surprise.”

“You don’t know yet, do you?”

“I have an idea,” Squall defended.

“Okay, okay,” Rinoa laughed, “One more question then: do I have to go there myself or are you gonna pick me up?”

“It’d ruin the surprise if I made you go by yourself.  I’ll just have to see where the Garden’s at at the time.”

“Fair enough.  And I lied, one more question.”

“Okay.”

“Quistis texted me.”

Squall grimaced, already knowing what she was going to ask.

“She said you looked kinda antsy and really tired and she’s worried, so now I’m worried,” Rinoa said, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” Squall answered, trying to bite back the annoyance, “I just couldn’t sleep, no reason.”

“You’re a bad liar, you know that?”

“I’ve been called worse,” Squall replied dryly.

“Seriously.  I know you don’t like talking about stuff that bothers you, but if it’s something serious, you’d tell me, right?”

“...Yeah, I would.”

“And you can honestly tell me whatever it is isn’t serious?”

“Mmhmm.”

They had different definitions of serious.  And from the disbelieving groan she gave, she knew he was playing with that angle.

“Alright, it’s not that bad then,” Rinoa conceded, “But if it gets worse...”

“Then I’ll say something,” Squall sighed.

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Okay, I love you.”

“Love you too.”

 

Later that evening, Squall fell asleep as soon as he laid down.  He dreamt of nothing, thankfully, but failed to get any restful sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promise i'm trying not to go over a month between updates but time just kinda slips away from me a little bit so you guys are totally welcome to hound me about updates here or [my tumblr](http://leo-arcana.tumblr.com/ask)  
> next chapter i'm gonna be laying out some more ground work and pushing the plot :>


	7. Weekend Getaway

Squall had hoped that Nida would pilot the Garden closer to Deling City, just for convenience as the Ragnarok was currently under maintenance, but with Galbadia being testy with Balamb at the moment, it was generally agreed on to steer as clear as possible of Galbadia’s borders.  However, after a little convincing, Nida had agreed to pass by Dollet.  It was within Galbadia’s territory, but after Ultimecia’s defeat, the city had swiftly reestablished its independent dukedom.  No one would complain, either about entering Dollet or about Nida altering the Garden’s course as a favor; he piloted the Garden in a random course and often would accommodate requests of staff or large groups of students.

Once he’d been dropped off in Dollet, Squall took the train to Deling City and rented a car, lying when asked if he intended to stay in the region.  On the drive to Caraway mansion, he flipped through the radio stations, looking for anything that wasn’t a talk-station.  One station in particular, that sounded like a news station, caught his attention.  They were talking about the possible Guardian Force in the Centra Ruins.

In only a couple days following the email sent out to Balamb and Trabia Garden, Galbadia Garden had tasked a team of some of their highest ranked SeeD with finding and capturing the Guardian Force.  With help from the research team that had discovered the site and indications of the GF, they had found it.  Deceased.

Squall snorted, trying not to laugh as the news reporter carried on.  There was a sense of irony in Galbadia becoming so immediately possessive of a GF, only for it to turn out to have been dead.  The GF had been dead for centuries, having gone so long undetected because of its decimation.  The current theory was that it had been killed in a Lunar Cry event, as that could be the only thing of the time capable of killing a GF.  Further findings at the site indicated the GF had been a large humanoid creature capable of ‘lifting mountains’ and, in a few writings, was referred to as “Titan”.

The SeeD team was now working with the research team to organize a full excavation of the GF’s remains to be brought to Galbadia to be studied and later possibly assembled for display in a museum.

_That might actually be cool to see._

The news reporter lingered on the topic for another minute, taking the time for a shot at Balamb for its numerous Guardian Forces.  Squall rolled his eyes and switched the station as he arrived at the mansion.  He’d scarcely pulled out his phone to text Rinoa when he saw the front door fly open.  Rinoa was hurrying out of the door and down the path way, clearly trying to restrain herself from running.  Once she reached the car, Squall leaned over and pushed the door open for her.

“You seem excited,” Squall commented.

Rinoa threw her bag in the back seat.

“This is a very much needed vacation.”

Squall nodded in agreement.  He hadn’t realized how much he needed a break until he’d left the Garden.  Even if it was only for a weekend, it was still a weekend he could get some decent rest.

 _Hopefully.  As long as_ she _doesn’t invade my dreams._

Rinoa settled in and buckled her seat belt as Squall pulled away from the mansion.

“So, anything new or exciting?” Rinoa asked.

Squall glanced at her in confusion.  There was rarely anything new and he always told her about it if something ever happened.  Sensing he wasn’t getting what she was trying to hint, Rinoa threw her head back with a dramatic groan.

“About that new Guardian Force?”

“Oh, yeah actually.  It’s dead.”

“What?!”

“That’s what I just heard.”

“You didn’t get to do anything with it?”

“Nope, Galbadia forbade anyone from stepping in, especially Balamb.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that... That’s lame.  But really, it’s dead?”

Squall nodded and told her, in a nutshell, what he’d heard on the radio just before picking her up and what Galbadia had said in their email.  She too laughed at irony, but then more seriously wondered how bad the Lunar Cry had been at the time to kill a Guardian Force.  Squall reminded her it was the same that wiped out the entire continent, he doubted that anything could’ve survived something that intense. 

The conversation wandered from the Lunar Cry to Guardian Forces and fighting monsters, then to Rinoa again talking about how she missed doing things like working with Timber Owls and her dislike of all the public relations work she had to do.  Squall agreed with her, it had seemed like it might’ve been a good idea, but it wasn’t going in the best direction and it was just too much.  At this point, it might be better for her to just stop and be a normal person.  The public might be more accepting of a normal person than someone who tirelessly tried to change their opinions through continued, constant acts of goodness.  Rinoa had been thinking the same and was intending to say something when they got back.

Rinoa asked if he felt the same with everything that was expected of him.  He did a little bit, to be honest.  He missed having less responsibility and doing field work, though really he hadn’t gotten to do a lot of missions before the whole war that threw him into this position.  But he also couldn’t see himself stepping down from it either.  That didn’t seem to be what she wanted to hear, but she didn’t say anything about it.

_What does she want me to do?  Quit and run around helping resistance groups with her?  Are there even any serious ones around now?  Doesn’t seem like there’s a lot to resist._

Their conversation shifted again to lighter topics, idle but pleasant.  They made no stops on the way to Winhill, except for gas.  When they reached the town, Rinoa gave a little cheer of relief.  She’d gotten bored the last stretch of the drive.  He had to admit he had gotten bored too and was grateful to get out of the car.  He had every intention of just going to their motel, checking in, and passing out.  As soon as he said that, Rinoa frowned and crossed her arms.

“What?”

“We’ve been in the car all day.”

“And?” Squall prompted, then muttered, “It was only a couple hours.”

“And I’m hungry,” Rinoa whined.

“I’m not,” Squall shrugged, “Should’ve got something when we stopped for gas.”

Rinoa gave him the same look she had when he’d suggested it.  She had not, and would not, ever eat gas station food.  He tried to point out that she didn’t need to get any of the food under the heat lamps, she could get any of the snacks in its small aisles; they were the same as at any store.  She still refused.  He hadn’t gotten any food either, and to be honest, he wasn’t really hungry.  He’d gotten used to eating only once per day, or twice if he was lucky, because of the endless amount of work he had.

“Don’t be a jerk, let’s go get something to eat,” Rinoa pleaded, “Oh, we can even go to your mom’s bar.”

Now it was Squall’s turn to frown.  They’d been a couple times before, but he was certain she was only suggesting it because he’d never said no the previous times they’d visited.  A quick glance over at her confirmed his suspicion, but there was a bit of genuineness.

“Alright, fine.”

Rinoa beamed and clapped her hands.

“They have the _best_ pretzels there, I’m so excited!”

Squall very rarely ever said any food was the best or amazing, but Rinoa was right.  If someone told him the pretzels came from heaven, he would probably believe it without question.  The current owner had made the right call both in adding a kitchen during a renovation and hiring a cook who knew what they were doing. 

“And then can we go window shopping?”

“The stores never change.”

“I know, but they have neat stuff you don’t see in Deling.”

Squall shrugged and Rinoa smiled as he led the way to the motel to at least check in and drop off their bags.  Afterwards they made their way to the bar, the name of which Squall never remembered, and were greeted warmly by the bartender idly waiting for patrons.  The bartender recognized them from before and sent an order for their food to the kitchen.  Rinoa teased Squall that the bartender had a crush on him and that’s why she remembered.  He flatly denied it and said it was probably just because of his scar.  That’s how most people recognized him.  At that point she came by with their food and drinks, sheepishly admitting that it was Squall who was right.  Squall flashed her a smug look and she scowled back.  The bartender also added that it was how strikingly similar he looked to Raine.  It wasn’t the first time he’d heard that, but his response to it was always an awkward ‘thanks’.

He was a bit quiet after that and Rinoa asked if he’d rather go visit her than window shop, but he shook his head, saying he’d go tomorrow.

They finished their food and went window shopping as promised, though it ended up becoming regular shopping at some point.  Rinoa had convinced him not only to go into half a dozen little stores, but to also buy her a few cute trinkets and a stuffed Moomba doll.

Once they finally made it back to the motel, Squall flopped down on the bed, ready to go to sleep.  Rinoa bounced on the bed beside him, flipping on the TV.  She made comments on just about every show she flipped through, to which he grunted in response.  Eventually, she found something to watch and went to change into her pajamas to settle in under the covers.  After some prodding and elbowing, Squall did the same and almost immediately fell asleep the moment the blankets fell over him.

He had several long moments of blissful, dreamless sleep before the darkness began to lighten and take on the familiar appearance of a hazy void.  He felt his feet find the dry, cracked ground as it took on more definition.

_Not again._

“Winhill is where the first Guardian Force was created, you know.”

The hairs on the back of Squall’s neck raised when he heard her voice.  He saw her just from the corner of his eye and turned to face her; as tense as before, but making no effort to move this time.  She gave a small smile, pleased he wasn’t trying to distance himself this time.

“And where true fear of a sorceress’ potential was born,” Ultimecia added, “As well as the last Guardian Force.”

“How strong could a sorceress have been back then?  Isn’t your strength compiled from passing on powers?”

“She wasn’t particularly strong,” Ultimecia mused, “But in that moment, it was akin to an average human receiving an adrenaline boost and being able to lift a car in an emergency.  She was in mortal danger and in that moment, she felt Hyne’s unfiltered power.”

“And made Shiva to save herself?”

Ultimecia nodded.

“Is that how all of them are made?  Why they’re here?”

“With a few exceptions, yes.  Eden and Doomtrain, I would hesitate to call them true Guardian Forces.  Unfortunately, similar could be said of Tiamat,” Ultimecia sighed, “You recall him, don’t you?”

He remembered the dark blue and gold dragon, the strongest of the beasts guarding her castle, and the unsettling way it prepared its Dark Flare.  He also remembered the scan spell revealing it— he— was a corrupted Guardian Force.

“The intentions behind creating Tiamat were the same, only a want of a powerful beast to protect me.”

“You had Griever.”

“The key word there is ‘ _had_ ’,” Ultimecia sneered, “If you remember, I’d said he came and went as he pleased.  And after a time, he abandoned me.  Until you SeeD arrived in my throne room.  I needed a Guardian Force who would stay.”

Ultimecia folded her arms and glared into the haze.  Despite her tone and stance, Squall could tell her glare was faltering and lacked menace.

“...you said before you wanted to help me ‘find’ Griever, but you said sorceresses created them.”

Ultimecia side-eyed him with a quirked eyebrow.

“Does Griever already exist?”

“He does,” Ultimecia smiled, “He’s just... slumbering.”

“Then you didn’t create him?  Who did, how long has he existed?”

“Such curiosity, but such good questions.  The answers to which are a little complicated and not particularly important to finding him, but I know you’ll come across the answers eventually.”

“You’re not going to tell me?”

“Why would I?”

“You said you were here to help find him.”

She looked upwards and tapped her chin with mock thoughtfulness.

“My help is...more of keeping you interested,” Ultimecia hummed, “So that you will wake him for me, but also as a warning of what you’re getting into.  To see if you would still wake him if you knew.”

Squall sighed and put a face to his hand.

_I’ve already met him, and fought him, what more warning could I need?_

Ultimecia’s laugh startled him, but the condescending tone wasn’t missed.

“I’ll show you when next we talk.  For now, you’ve been asleep quite some time and your _dearest_ has been trying to wake you.”

Before he could say anything, Ultimecia waved her hand the haze rolled in in between them, growing denser and darker until he lost sight of her.  The ground disappeared from beneath his feet, leaving him floating in the darkness.  He could hear a sound far off somewhere; the closer and clearer it became, the heavier his eyes felt.  When he relaxed and closed his eyes, he could swear it felt like falling asleep, but the sound, that he now recognized as Rinoa’s voice, reminded him he was already asleep and waking up.

“ _Squall_ ,” Rinoa whined, “Wake up!”

Squall grumbled and opened his eyes, throwing his arm lazily over his face to shield his eyes from the bright light of the sun.  Rinoa groaned beside him and pulled his arm back, continuing her litany of ‘wake up’ and ‘Squall’.

“What?” Squall growled.

“You’ve been asleep forever,” Rinoa huffed, “And you were mumbling in your sleep.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, and a lot too.”

“’bout what?”

“I dunno,” Rinoa shrugged, “When I say mumbling, I mean _mumbling_.  I couldn’t understand anything.  What were you dreaming about?”

“...Nothing.”

“Squall.”

“What?”

“C’mon.”

“It was nothing, I don’t even remember.”

“You know I can tell when you’re lying.”

“Good thing I’m not lying.”

Rinoa pouted at him as he sat up.  He rubbed his face and sighed, looking at her, waiting for her to say something more.  Rinoa rolled her eyes and shoved him. He let himself fall back with a lazy smile.

“Fine, don’t tell me.”

“Can’t tell you if I don’t remember.”

He hoped she’d let him fall back asleep, once again, because of Ultimecia he felt like he’d gotten no rest.  But she didn’t.  Rinoa threw the blankets back, sending a rush of cool air over him that woke him up completely.  He sighed and ran his hands down his face, getting up to get dressed.  Rinoa took a little longer to get ready, but not long enough for him to lay down and try to sleep for a few minutes.

They had breakfast and walked around the town more, eventually making their way to the more rural outskirts.  Squall was mindful of the chocobo trail crossing on the path, he was still paranoid of one of them charging and knocking into him.  They came to the rolling hills, adorned with the colorful flowers blooming in the early summer, that acted Winhill’s cemetery.  The headstones were sparse, which he supposed was an oddly good thing.

Raine’s headstone was framed by penstemons and dahlias.  Rinoa noticed Squall making the concentrated face he always did whenever he was deep in thought.  She wrapped both her arms around his left arm and rested her head against his shoulder.  He didn’t say anything, she didn’t expect him to, nor did he move.

_How strange it is to mourn someone you never knew..._

That thought always echoed through his head when he thought about Raine.  But he knew it wasn’t strange, he repeatedly told himself that.  It wasn’t just mourning her death, but also a relationship lost before it could even start.

After a while, he took a deep breath and pressed a light kiss to the top of Rinoa’s head, wordlessly indicating he was ready to leave.  She slid one hand down to intertwine her fingers with his as they started walking.  She waited until the headstones were no longer visible before trying to make light conversation with him.

As soon as they were close to entering the town, they both heard the sound of small feet running up behind them.  Squall tensed, briefly thinking it was actually the sound of a distant chocobo coming after them.  Rinoa felt a tug on her duster and turned around to see a small boy looking up at her.

“Hello,” Rinoa smiled, “Wh—”

“Are you the sorceress?” the boy interrupted.

“Uh, y-yes, I am.  Why do you ask?”

“Do you know the other sorceresses?”

“Sort of, yeah,” Rinoa replied, unsure how to answer.

“You’re not friends with them, right?”

“Huh?”

“You’re not friends with them, right?” the boy repeated, “Cuz if you were, that’d mean you’re mean too, right?”

“What’re you talking about?”

_The hell is with this kid...?_

“My dad says all sorceresses are friends and they all like to be mean for fun,” the boy explained, “Is that true?”

“N-no, not at all.  I don’t think any of them were friends, they certainly aren’t my friends.  I don’t have a mean bone in me,” Rinoa joked, “Right, Squall?”

“Huh?  Um, no, not really,” Squall answered.

The boy leaned to the side to get a better view of Squall and stared at him curiously for a moment.  Squall shifted awkwardly under the kid’s gaze.

“Are you her knight?” the boy asked, “My dad talked a lot about knights too.”

“Did he now...” Squall muttered dryly.

“Yeah, he says they’re monsters, but you don’t look like a monster.”

“Nope, I’m not a monster,” Squall replied, trying to hide his growing annoyance.

“And I’m not mean,” Rinoa reiterated, “Maybe he was just talking about one or two sorceresses?”

The boy opened his mouth, but was cut off at the distant sound of a woman’s voice calling him.  He turned and waved, hollering he’d be right there.

“I’m gonna tell my dad he’s wrong, you guys’re pretty nice.”

Before either of them could say anything, the boy took off running in the direction of the woman calling him.  The two of them stared after him until he disappeared from sight.

“What a weird kid,” Squall commented.

Rinoa dipped her head, sighing and letting her shoulders drop.

“No one’s ever gonna change their minds...”

Squall flinched a bit at the tone of her voice, he hated the sound of defeat in her voice.  He stepped forward and took her hand, turning her around.  She didn’t look up at him.  With his other hand, he tipped her chin up and stared intently at her until she lifted her eyes, glassy with tears, to meet his.

“That’s not true and you know it,” Squall spoke gently, “One old man in a tiny town in the middle of the nowhere isn’t an indicator for what everyone thinks.”

“But he’s not the only one—”

“It’s Winhill, they’re a little jaded and they’ve got their heads in the sand,” Squall interrupted, “And so what if he’s not the only who thinks that.  The fact is you are changing people’s minds, it’s just not gonna happen overnight though.  But if anyone can do it...you can.”

Rinoa blinked away the tears that had threatened to spill and hugged him, burying her face in his chest.  He lightly rested his head on top of hers, petting her hair before giving her another quick kiss on the head.

“You should say nice things more often.”

“They wouldn’t be that special then.”

Rinoa pulled back and pouted at him.  He just shrugged in response.  She took his hand again, bringing up the idea of her just giving up on public relations, now sounding much more resolute in it.  He knew she hated quitting, but if it was this upsetting to her, then it was the best option.  In time, maybe people would forget altogether that she was a sorceress and she could just be Rinoa again.  She really liked the sound of that, being just her again.  Not sorceress, not witch, not evil.

_And what the hell about knights being monsters?_

               

As their weekend came to end, Rinoa tried convince Squall they should stay for a few more days.  It had gone too quickly and she wasn’t ready to go back ‘real life’.  He wasn’t either, but he didn’t have as much of a choice as she did.  But on their drive back, he did take his time and make a few extra stops whenever Rinoa pointed out something interesting.

They arrived back in Deling late at night, Squall walking Rinoa to the door of the mansion.  She tried to convince him to stay the night, it was too late for him to be driving.  But Nida was bringing the Garden back around to Dollet soon.

“Can’t he just station the Garden there for the night?  Dollet’s a free territory.”

“Only in so much sense of the word,” Squall sighed, “Balamb Garden can’t be stationed in any Galbadia territories for too long.”

“Isn’t there some twenty-four hour rule?”

“Galbadia doesn’t recognize it anymore.  It’s more like four hours now.”

“God, I hate this place.”

Squall smiled softly, shaking his head.

“Promise we can do this again soon?”

“Of course.”

“Good,” Rinoa said, standing up on her toes to give him a kiss, “Drive safe, love you.”

“Love you too.”

He waited until she went inside and he heard the door lock before turning and walking back to the car.  As he drove, he thought to himself Rinoa was right.  It was too late to be driving and he was getting sleepy.  He rolled the windows down, hoping the cool night air would help keep him awake until he at least reached the train station.

When he made it back to the train station and returned the car to the rental company across the street, he received a text from Nida that the Garden was currently in Dollet.  He muttered a curse under his breath and replied he was boarding the train in just a few minutes.  The train was quick, but it would still take just over an hour to get back to Dollet. 

He had wanted to take a short nap on the train, but his brain kept replaying the conversation with the kid in Winhill.  He wasn’t surprised the boy’s father had nothing nice to say about sorceress, but knights being monsters?  He’d never heard anyone say anything about the knights.  Then again, he spent most of his time in the Garden, away from any of the public.  Maybe they did talk just as badly about knights as they did sorceresses.  It would make sense, why would they have anything good to say about someone who protected what they saw as bad and evil.

_Still weird._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear i'm not trying to take a month+ to update ;_; please feel free to harass me about updates either here or [**my tumblr**](http://leo-arcana.tumblr.com/)


	8. A Strange Request and a Premonition

_Knights are monsters?_

Squall stared up at the ceiling of his dorm, still thinking about what that boy had said.  It had been a few days already, but it still bothered him for some reason.  Had knights in the past been terrible?  He was sure they’d only be as bad as the sorceress they protected and the only evil ones he knew of were Adel and Ultimecia, and Adel didn’t have a knight. 

_Was it because of what Seifer did and he just decided every knight was like that?  ...Can’t say I haven’t done anything wrong either though..._

He did, after all, attempt to assassinate Galbadia’s newly elected ambassador, though now that should be considered a good thing.  And he wasn’t the most merciful against Galbadian soldiers and SeeD in the battle between the two Gardens.  Maybe part of it was also that this old man didn’t believe Rinoa was possessed and she had tried to release Adel herself, and Squall defending her had made him look bad.

_Just some old man’s opinion, why do I care?_

Squall rubbed a hand down his face, deciding to finally get up.  He had the day off, but had still gotten up and ready at the same time as he usually did, then laid back down, trying to think of something to do before his thoughts had wandered. 

As he made his way out of the dorms, his thoughts circled back around to how Guardian Forces are created.  He didn’t think the library would have anything more helpful than what he’d read through, but perhaps Quistis might know something.  She would’ve had to have done more extensive research to be able to teach using them.  Maybe she could tell him whether Ultimecia was right or lying; that they were created by sorceresses when their knights weren’t enough.

_No, she didn’t say that.  She didn’t say anything about a knight for the one who created Shiva.  Is it only sorceresses who don’t have knights that create them?  That would make sense..._

He took the elevator up to the next floor and walked by Quistis’ class room.  He didn’t know if she was teaching a class today and glanced in the window of the door as he walked, not wanting to linger at the window if there was a class.  From what he could tell of the few students in the classroom and Quistis sitting quietly at her desk, it was either a test retake or an elective study hall prior to a test. 

He turned on his heels and went back towards the elevator, he’d come back in a little while to see if the class was over.  For the time being, he decided to go back to his dorm to grab his gunblade and go down to the Training Center.  The TC staff had recently introduced some new monsters, though they weren’t much stronger than the ones that already roamed the center, at least it was something different.

He heard a number of monsters hiding amongst the bushes and trees.  He caught a glimpse of a few of them, recognizing them as the type of monsters that were always here.  He knew they weren’t stalking him, they were actually trying to hide.  A lot of them hid whenever a small group of SeeD came through, and Squall was sure that at least a few of the monsters in here had been here since he started attending Balamb.

A few brave, or stupid, grats jumped out at him.  He felled them with the same amount of effort as killing a spider.  He heard some more scurrying from the bushes, other grats no doubt.  Moving closer to the water, he saw the fins of several fastitocalons and tried to antagonize the fish to come out by using magic, but only succeeded in scaring them away.  A grendel approached him from behind, then stopped when Squall turned to face it.  The monster seemed to study for a moment and thought better of challenging him.  A flock of red bats flew overhead, probably disturbed by another monster, and paid him no mind. 

Squall frowned at the lack of combat.  He checked his phone to see he’d only been there maybe ten minutes and had already walked most of the main trail.  He stuffed his phone in his pocket and shouldered his gunblade.  He’d make one more lap in hopes some other monster would be brave or stupid enough to come out at him.

None of them were.

If he weren’t waiting for Quistis’ class to be over, he would’ve taken a small aircraft down to whatever region they were over and fought the wild monsters there.  Giving up on the Training Center, he took his time returning to the dorms to store his gunblade, then took the longer way around to the elevators.  Just as he stepped off the elevator, several students brushed by him to get on it, and a couple others were lingering on the bridge.  They gave him a curious look, wondering why the commander was walking towards the classrooms, but he couldn’t under their mutterings.

When he came back to Quistis’ classroom, he was glad to see she was the only one there now.  However, she did look busy working on some papers.  He thought for a moment he should leave again, but she caught sight of him before he could leave.

“Well this is a surprise,” Quistis smiled, “What brings you to class?”

“I was wondering if you could answer a question for me.”

Quistis gestured for him to come in, rather than linger in the doorway.  It felt odd walking into the classroom no longer as a student.

“What’s the question?”

“Do you... know how Guardian Forces are made?” Squall asked, “I’ve looked through what the library has, but there’s nothing concrete.”

“How they’re made?” Quistis repeated.

Squall nodded.

“Well, unfortunately... that’s a question that’s puzzled scholars and scientists alike for decades.  Maybe even centuries.  The only ones made in recent history are Doomtrain and Eden, and that was after considerable trial and error.”

_I know that._

“There’s only theories.  No one’s found any records of a Guardian Forces creation, only that they suddenly appear in the presence of a sorceress.  But nothing indicating the sorceress performed any sort of— ritual or spell or sacrifice,” Quistis shrugged, “Why do you ask?”

“Just a curiosity,” Squall shrugged.

“Squall,” Quistis’ tone took on that of a stern mother, “You didn’t care at all the entire time you studied GFs for the SeeD exam.  So, why do you ask?”

“It’s just something I’ve been thinking about.”

Quistis narrowed her eyes at him in disbelief.

“...since we fought Ultimecia,” Squall admitted, averting his gaze.

Quistis leaned an elbow on her desk, resting her head on her fist and studying him for a moment.  Her eyes fell on his necklace and the sorceress’ haunting words echoed through her mind.

_“The most powerful GF... you shall suffer!”_

_“Griever, make them bleed!”_

“You want to know how she made Griever,” Quistis said slowly.

Squall didn’t react.

“I don’t think you’re going to get an answer,” Quistis sighed, “Ultimecia isn’t from our lifetime, so Griever isn’t either.  We won’t be around to see her make him—”

_Ultimecia said he exists now... But I can’t tell her that._

“So, unless a sorceress from the present makes one, all we have to go on is artificial creation.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Squall muttered.

Quistis quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Call it a hunch.”

Quistis sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose.  She knew him well enough that once something did have his attention, which wasn’t too often, he couldn’t let it go until the thing was no longer interesting.  Until he had answers; in this case, answers that didn’t exist.

“Just...please don’t get too fixated on this.”

Squall rolled his eyes, muttering something about letting him know if she found anything noteworthy as he turned to walk out of the classroom. 

He couldn’t help but feel disappointed by her answer.  Partly at that she couldn’t answer the original question, but more so at that Guardian Forces made their appearance in the presence of sorceress.  Griever may exist now, but he may very not make himself known until Ultimecia appeared years into the future. 

_No, Ultimecia said they were made to save sorceresses, so if Griever already exists...then is Ultimecia actually from the present?  Or the past?_

He could feel a headache already coming on from thinking about it.  He rubbed his forehead, trying to think of something else to get his mind off it, but with no success.  He could try asking her again, but he was sure that she would evade the question again and talk about whatever warning it was she felt he needed.

His phone pinged with email, giving him the distraction he needed.  It only alerted him to high priority emails.  He fished his phone out of his pocket and opened the email, cocking his head to the side at the subject line and lack of a sender name.  The subject line simply read ‘mission request’.  No mission request ever came to him personally.

_Probably spam, but... all Garden staff emails are protected..._

There was a small icon next to the blank space where a name should be, indicating it was confidential.  He stared at it for moment as he walked, then opened it.  Inside the email was a link.  He opened it as well and it took him to the actual message.  It was surprisingly short, saying only that it was a two-person request, specifying that he was one of those persons.  The other was specified to be Rinoa.  This immediately raised red flags to him, but he continued reading.  Despite being confidential, the sender still didn’t say what the mission itself was, only to go to Fisherman’s Horizon and speak with the mayor.  There was no deadline, but the sooner the better, and for him to mention this to no one except Rinoa.

Squall frowned at the email.  He didn’t intend to walk into something suspicious, especially if it was involving Rinoa.  He hit reply and typed out an equally short message, asking for further detail.  He sent it, and almost immediately got a new email notification.  However, it was a notification that message could not be sent without a recipient.  He stared at his phone.

_How was there not a recipient?  I just replied to it._

He tried once more to respond and was given the same notification.  He muttered a curse under his breath and stuffed his phone back in his pocket.  How important could this be if whoever this was couldn’t provide any information about this ‘mission’.

_Important enough to be confidential.  But why Rinoa and I?  And why Fisherman’s Horizon?_

He tried to come up with a reason why it had to be the two of them and why they had to speak with the mayor, but the only thing he could think of was some kind of trap.  But he couldn’t think of what for or why.  If it was truly important, they would have said more and there would be a deadline, just like any other mission.  Or else they would have submitted the request like any other and just noted they wanted specific people.  Until whoever sent it did either of those things, he was going to ignore it.

 

That plan worked for all of a day and a half until his curiosity got the better of him.  He still wasn’t going to involve Rinoa until he knew what this was about, but he was going to go Fisherman’s Horizon.  He told Xu where he was going, despite the email instructing not to mention anything, just in case his suspicions of a trap were true.

The flight there took a couple hours, the Garden having been near the Deep-Sea Research Center.  When he arrived, no one seemed surprised to see him, almost like they expected him.  In fact, they almost looked sad.  There was definitely something going on and he was beginning to think the whole town was in on whatever it was.  He kept his hand rested on the hilt of his gunblade, though nothing gave any indication of... well, anything.  He didn’t know what to expect.

He reached the mayor’s home without any incident and didn’t even have to ask to see the mayor.  He was simply let in.  He told himself it was only because Fisherman’s Horizon so rarely had any outsiders and they remembered him.  How could they not?

The mayor was sitting at his desk and looked up at the sound of someone approaching.  When he saw Squall, his expression turned sad just as the townspeople’s had, but there was also something of relief on his face.

“I see you got the email,” the mayor started, “I apologize for the lack of detail, but uh... given circumstances I thought it better to be discussed in person.”

“How did you get my email?  And why did such a vague email need to be confidential?”

“Headmaster Cid provided it.”

_Goddammit._

“He was reluctant to give it, if that’s of any consolation,” the mayor offered, “But in any case, I suppose you want to know what this is about.  Is Rinoa with you?”

“No, I didn’t say anything to her.”

The mayor was surprised and disappointed to hear that.

“I don’t know what any of this is about, but being secretive about it tells me it’s not something good and she has enough of that to deal with.”

“Ah, that is fair.  And somewhat relevant to the issue.”

“Which is?”

The mayor motioned to a chair across his desk.  Squall crossed the room and took a seat.  The mayor folded his hands, resting his chin against them and humming quietly in thought; the sadness returned to his face.

“The reason for the secrecy is because the general opinion of sorceresses is still... less than good.  And I did not wish to draw attention, to either Rinoa or my town.  But the fact of the matter is,” the mayor took a deep breath, “We have a sorceress here who is dying.  Has been dying.”

Squall’s heart skipped a beat, he knew what the mayor was going to ask.

“As you know, they can’t die until the pass on their powers and Rinoa is the only sorceress I know of and the only one I would trust to receive additional powers, besides Mrs. Kramer.  However, she declined.”

“You asked her?”

“Yes, several days ago,” the mayor nodded, “I reached out to her through your headmaster, he gave me his personal contact after the Garden crashed here, in case further reparations were needed.  She did consider it, as she didn’t want Rinoa to be the one receiving them with all the world’s eyes on her.  However, she also fears what the world would do her, should she receive powers again.”

Squall ran a hand down his face.  He had to agree with Edea.  With how most people still felt about sorceresses and Rinoa being so much in the public eye, taking on another sorceress’ power could only elicit a negative reaction.  And with what Ultimecia had made her do, her receiving powers again would be equally bad, if not worse.

“...and there’s no one else?”

“If there is, they are being protected and kept secret from the world as well.”

Squall sighed and looked away from the mayor.  He was afraid Rinoa would agree to it, because someone was suffering and she may be the only option to end it.  He briefly considered saying nothing to Rinoa; ignorance is bliss and they can find someone else.  There was no way Rinoa and Edea were the only sorceresses left.  But the immediate guilt that pitted in his stomach had him reconsidering.

_Does that me a terrible person...?_

“...I’ll ask her.”

“Thank you so much, I understand the risk this possess to her and I cannot express my gratitude enough.”

Squall only hummed in response.  Just like the mayor, he felt this was something he’d had to talk to her about in person.  If there was no trace of such a discussion, and with all of Fisherman’s Horizon having kept this sorceress a complete secret from the world, then they could simply call it another weekend getaway.  Only low-grade, gossipy tabloids would cry about it, if any media would.

The mayor thanked him once again as he stood to leave.  Squall sent a text to Rinoa, asking what she was doing as he made his way back to the small aircraft he’d taken.  She replied quickly that she wasn’t doing anything later, at the moment she was at a charity event.  He asked if she could come to Balamb afterwards; it was something of a halfway point and Balamb wouldn’t have any objections to a Balamb aircraft landing outside the city, unannounced.  A minute later, he received only a question mark.  He grumbled to himself, thinking of what to say that could it sound like a normal conversation. 

_[Surprise date.]_

_[Really?!?]_

_[You’ve said before you like surprises.]_

Squall shook his head at himself.

_[This is a really big surprise lol but a good one!  What time?]_

_[Soon as you can.]_

_[Oooh~?  Okay, I’ll text you when I’m on the way!]_

Squall didn’t respond after that.  Instead, he focused more on how he was going to tell Rinoa what was happening.  Maybe he’d just say the same thing the mayor had said.  There wasn’t much more that needed to said than that.  Still, he felt like he needed to phrase it better.  Even by the time he reached Balamb, he hadn’t come up with anything better.

He walked around Balamb, killing time waiting for Rinoa and found himself once again considering not telling her anything.  What was the worst that could happen if he said nothing?  The sorceress would be kept alive, so to speak.  He wondered if she was truly suffering and supposed it would depend on how she ‘died’.  If it was a peaceful death, maybe she wasn’t feeling anything and the extent of her suffering was simply knowing she should be dead.  If her death was in agony, then perhaps she was being forced to endure that pain continuously until she was able to pass on her powers.  The knot of guilt returned and Squall berated himself for the selfish thoughts.

Several hours passed and he hadn’t heard anything from Rinoa.  He texted her again to see if she was done with the charity event.  Almost the moment he sent the text, he got one from her.  The event had gone on longer than it should have, she’d tell him later, and she hadn’t been able to get to the train station before the last one left.  She wouldn’t be able to get there until tomorrow and hoped it hadn’t ruined any plans.  He told her it didn’t change anything and that he’d see her tomorrow then.

Squall sighed and texted Nida to see where the Garden was.  If it was close by, he’d go back for the night and then return to Balamb in the morning.  A few minutes later, Nida replied they were on practically the exact opposite side of the world. 

_Guess I’m getting a hotel then._

He could still fly to the Garden, but it was a long flight that could be made longer and he didn’t feel like making that trip only to return a few hours later.  He made his way to the hotel down by the docks and paid for room for the night.  As he walked to his room, he swore he heard Fujin’s short and aggressive voice coming from one of the rooms.

_Are they still staying here?_

After the battle with Ultimecia, Headmaster Cid had told him Seifer, Fujin, and Raijin were officially, and dishonorably, discharged and left in Balamb.  He didn’t think they would stay here, but he didn’t know what else he thought they might do.

He stepped into his room, turning on the TV and flipped through channels aimlessly.  The thought that Seifer might be here had him thinking about what the kid from Winhill had said and either himself or Seifer could’ve done to warrant such a comment.  He kept reminding himself that it didn’t matter what the old man thought, but he couldn’t let it go.  If a single comment bothered him like this, he could hardly imagine how bothered Rinoa was by what everyone said about sorceresses.  She probably wasn’t being entirely honest about it, he knew there were still times she felt like she was annoying him with her feelings and tried to keep them to herself.  He wasn’t the best at talking about feelings, but given what he was going to tell and ask of her, he felt he should ask her how she was handling everything, truthfully, before he mentioned the dying sorceress.

At that, he felt no guilt.

He watched the TV absently until his eyes grew heavy and he drifted off to sleep.  At first, he wasn’t surprised to see dry, cracked earth fading into sight around him.  He was expecting the shrunken island of land in the void, as it often was, but instead the space took on more definition.  The land stretched out into rolling hills with patches of forest several miles off.  The sun hung low in the sky, painting everything in fiery shades of red and orange.  There was a constant, muffled hum of sound just over a nearby hill and the glow of something just beyond it.

“What is this place?” Squall wondered aloud.

“Do you remember what I said before?”

He turned around to see Ultimecia standing with her hand on her hip and looking at him expectantly.  She walked closer as he thought, her tattered gown and blackened feet getting no more dirty than they already appeared. 

“That you were going to show me something about Griever,” Squall replied slowly.

“And that’s what I’m doing.  Griever is gone now, the only way to show you anything is through memories.”

“How’re you doing this?  You’re dead too.”

“We’ve already had this conversation,” Ultimecia sighed, “And Ellone isn’t the only one who can send a person’s consciousness back in time.  Or forward in time, in your case.  Backwards for me.”

Ultimecia waved her hand towards the height of the hill.  Squall stared at her suspiciously before starting up the incline.  As he walked, the muffled sounds became clearer; perfectly recognizable as the sounds of battle.  Explosions, clashing weapons, machine gunfire, roars of fire magic, shattering of ice magic, rumbling earth magic—

Atop the hill he could see the warzone.  He recognized the Balamb SeeD uniforms and armor, insignias on machines.  The other army, he didn’t know at all.  Their colors and insignia didn’t resemble a Garden’s at all.  In the distance, behind the Balamb army, he could see Balamb Garden.  Its halo glowing and lighting it from below, along with its interior lights and the dying sunlight far behind.  He turned his gaze to the other side of the battlefield.  Further off from the unknown army than Balamb Garden was from its own, sitting the darkness of night and hardly illuminated by halos, were what had to be two other Gardens.  He squinted his eyes, trying to focus more on them. 

Even in the darkness and dim light, he recognized the red paint, gold patterns, and the halo of one.  It was Galbadia Garden, although its shaped had been slightly altered.  Perhaps from the renovations it was currently undergoing.  The third Garden, however—

_Is that Trabia?_

“It’s no longer called Trabia Garden at this point in time,” Ultimecia stated, “It’s Esthar Garden now.”

“What’s going on?  Why’re the Gardens fighting?”

“What’s the purpose of Garden and SeeD?”

Squall stared at her for a moment before turning back to the warzone below him.  Ultimecia stepped up beside him.  She raised a hand, pointing a sharp finger down to the center of the battle.

“There.”

“What?”

“Watch.”

At this distance, a safe distance, they were too far away to see any distinguishable figures.  Squall was about to ask what he should be watching for when his question was answered.  There was a crackle of violet lightning and shadows, darker than the encroaching night, spreading outward.  The lightning surged and suddenly black and ember colored blades lanced forward, spearing nearly a dozen SeeD.  A bright, lavender portal swirled into existence a short distance away, raining down arrows of the same color and drifting away from the source of lightning and shadow, nailing SeeD to the ground and sparking against the armor of war machines.  Massive icy axe heads manifested and spiraled through the air.  Smaller ember arrows fired like machine gun bullets.  Another lavender portal swirled and swept in another direction.

“What— Is— Is that you?”

“The true power of sorceress,” Ultimecia shrugged, a hint of pride in her voice.

Squall continued to watch the ethereal weapons manifest and cleave through SeeDs and war machines, worsening as the lightning and shadows surged and spread.

“Why do you need Griever?  If you can do all that, what do you need him for?” Squall snapped.

“At this time, I was still new to weaponizing raw magic.  I still needed saving.”

She nodded back to herself, prompting him to watch for something else.  Despite the carnage and number of SeeD cut down, they still continued to throw themselves at her.  Eventually they were able to force her onto the defensive, there were less weapons flying and more barriers flashing.  The lightning and shadows began to recede, more SeeD flocked to her. 

It was then that Squall noticed something about the armies he hadn’t before.  He had thought the Gardens were placed to surround Ultimecia, but the way the SeeD were moving in on her— Balamb SeeD were fighting against the others, they were defending her.  Or at least, trying to.  The combined numbers of Galbadia and Esthar Garden were making it difficult for Balamb to do anything but hold their place.  Before a question could even formulate in his mind, there was a brilliant light forming behind the Balamb Seed, in front of Balamb Garden.  Sirens gave a chilling wail and a pattern of shouts echoed throughout the Galbadian and Estharian SeeDs.  It was an order to retreat.

Squall’s eyes widened at the growing light as spears of light and glittering orbs raised from it.  He knew what it was, it had haunted his dreams before. 

A deafening roar bellowed out, one so loud it muted the sirens and shouting.  A near black arm shot out of the light, digging crimson claws into the ground.  A crown of horns, atop a silver mane raised from pool of light, the other arm followed, likewise digging into the ground.  Feathered wings flared, another heart-stopping and deafening roar, and Griever hauled himself from the light.  Somewhere in the back of his head, Squall noted that he moved from the light more laboriously than he had in Ultimecia’s throne room.  But it was far more intimidating. 

Griever shuddered, as if waking himself more, his tail whipped across the ground with the motion and silver spade on the end sliced the ground deeply.  He crouched low, red horn-like protrusions on his forearms now more prominent, raised his wings and with a single beat, launched himself over the Balamb SeeD and directly into the heart of the retreating army.  A swipe of his paw sent bodies flying through the air amidst glimmers of crimson, others were crushed beneath the other paw, more still were cleanly cut in half by the spade of his tail as he whipped around.  Several unlucky SeeD were snatched up in his dark fangs, skewered and crushed. 

Squall stared in horror as the beast he’d dreamt of, his own idea of the embodiment of strength and power, continued to rend flesh from bone of those who were trying to do what was right.  With his unstoppable rampage, Griever had quickly cleared any threats away from Ultimecia.  The hum of approaching aircraft sounded and Griever turned his attention to the sky.  He reared to his hind legs, tucking his wings and crossing his arms.  Light shimmered around the aircrafts, brightening as it closed in on them.  The aircrafts abruptly stopped their advance, though not for lack of effort, and the orbs of light dragged them further skyward into the clouds.  For a moment, there was nothing.  Then the painfully blinding flash of collapsing star, accented by black tendrils erupting from the source.  Flaming parts of machines rained down from the sky, not a single parachute in sight.

Griever roared triumphantly, falling back onto all fours and bounding after the still retreating SeeD.  The halos of Galbadia and Esthar Garden lit up more as they began to spin faster, the Gardens turning as swiftly as they could, with no intent of waiting for the now damned SeeD.  Griever didn’t pay the SeeD much mind, for now, he only crushed those in his way as he made for the Gardens.

Squall felt his stomach drop as he took in the number of bodies Griever left behind him.  Ultimecia, on the battlefield, seemed to relax along with the Balamb SeeD as they watched the Guardian Force chase down their apparent enemies.

“This wasn’t even the worst act Griever committed,” Ultimecia noted, “But I don’t want to ruin his image too much for you.  Don’t worry, he doesn’t catch them.  Not this time.”

Squall said nothing as Griever disappeared into the darkness of the night, charging after the Gardens, whose light faded with their retreat.

“What’s the matter?  I thought there was nothing more you could need to know about him, since you fought him before.”

“...I was wrong...” Squall admitted softly, more to himself.

“You were,” Ultimecia agreed, “Griever is unlike any Guardian Force you know.  Will you still seek him out?”

“...No,” Squall answered quietly, “I won’t look for him and I won’t wake him.”

Ultimecia hummed thoughtfully as she studied him, then turned her eyes to her past-self down below.

“I have the answer to my own question now.”

“What?”

“I wondered, since Griever first appeared, whether you knew what you were unleashing on the world.”

“I’m not going to wake him,” Squall snapped.

“You will.  And you know how I know you will?  Because I’m still here.  Without Griever, I would have died with the first attempt on my life.  Nothing has changed.  You knew what would happen and you still chose to do it.”

Squall gritted his teeth, bristled with anger, denial, and horror at the accusation.  He opened his mouth to repeat himself, but Ultimecia raised a hand to his face and silenced him, freezing him where he stood.

“Save your resolves, their words mean nothing to this world.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> little bit longer chapter but I really wanted to write the memory/premonition of Griever. but what are you playing at Ultimecia? ;_;


	9. Succession

Squall had woken up at Ultimecia’s words and hadn’t been able to sleep again.  He stared out of the window at the dark sky and its few twinkling stars.  What Ultimecia had said played on repeat in his mind.  Each time the words echoed, he felt sickened and guilty.  She had a point, that if his resolve to not look for Griever now had been true, she wouldn’t have been there anymore.  She would’ve been killed by SeeD long before she could be a threat to the present.  Perhaps finding Griever was something he actually had no control over.  Perhaps it was some fated incident.  It wasn’t too farfetched of an idea, everything they had dealt with had been fated.  But he hadn’t known any of it, this was something he did know, to an extent and he should be able to change it.

Squall grumbled and turned over, ducking his head down and pulling the blanket up over his head.  He already knew that wouldn’t be possible, there something about what Ultimecia had said that he knew deep down was the truth.  More unsettling still was that he had seen Balamb SeeD defending her.

_Why?  Did she cast some mass hypnosis like she did to Galbadia?  She had to have._

He threw the blanket back and stared up at the ceiling for moment, then glanced outside.  The sky had begun to lighten a little bit.  He wondered if Galbadia had known they were being subjected to a mass hypnosis when it had started, if they had seen any warning signs of it.  Surely, she hadn’t come completely out of nowhere and succeeding in dazing an entire continent.  It had to have been gradual.  Balamb would be more aware of it happening, only because of Galbadia.  He was sure of it.

_But we still defended her... We?  She’s from the distant future, there’s no ‘we’, it’s ‘they’..._

There was something both comforting and disconcerting that he would have nothing to do with what he’d seen.

He tried to push the thoughts from his head and get a little more sleep, but he couldn’t get any of it out of his head.  He continued staring out of the window, not fully realizing how much lighter it was getting outside until his phone chimed and startled him.

It was a text from Rinoa.  She was getting on the first train to Balamb and would be there in a few hours.  He sighed and got up, going to take a shower.  The warmth of the shower lingered on his skin after he had finished and was almost enough to tempt him to crawl back into the bed and try once more to sleep for a little bit.  But looking at the clock, he knew he didn’t have much longer until he was expected to check out.

He finished getting dressed and trudged his way down to the small café downstairs that held a small continental breakfast.  As he picked up his food, this time he most certainly heard Fujin’s voice, followed by Seifer’s.  He threw the food on the plastic plate and as discreetly as he could, hurried his way out of the café, and out of the hotel, before either them noticed him. 

He walked down the dock and sat down on the edge to eat his breakfast.  The sea breeze swept by gently with a slight chill.  He looked up out at the horizon, spotting a little spec that he was sure was Balamb Garden.  He muttered to himself that of course the Garden would’ve come closer, he should’ve just flown back and saved himself the money.  He watched the Garden drift over the sea, framed by sunlight, and found himself remembering how it had looked in the setting sun.  Behind Ultimecia, at her aid.  Squall swallowed thickly and stared down at the remaining food.  He wasn’t hungry anymore.

He lingered on the dock, intently watching the Garden’s movements until it disappeared again over the horizon.  His phone chimed again, pulling him from his thoughts.  It was Rinoa again, the train was only a few minutes out from the station.  He got to his feet with a grunt and started off towards the station, dumping the rest of his food in the garbage at the end of the dock.

Squall reached the station just as the train pulled in.  It took only another minute before he saw Rinoa stepping off and spotting him immediately.  She walked quickly and excitedly, clearly trying not to run, up to him and threw her arms around him.

“I am loving these surprise dates,” Rinoa smiled, “Two in row, I’m starting to think you’ve got a romantic side.”

“You might want to think again...”

“But really, it’s nice though.  And I know you just asked yesterday, but I’ve been so excited, I needed to get away.”

“We just had a weekend away.”

“I know, but just— Everything just keeps getting worse, I know you said it’s not an overnight thing, but I’m pretty sure it’s more like a ‘maybe next century they’ll change their minds’ thing,” Rinoa sighed, “I don’t wanna do this anymore.”

Rinoa started walking away from the station, Squall followed.

“Then don’t, but—”

_Where is she going?_

“I can’t just not, that’ll make everyone all upset.  Honestly, I kinda wish I could have some near-death experience just to pawn off these powers and not be a sorceress anymore,” Rinoa gave a dry laugh.

It was a bad joke, but there was note of seriousness.  Which put Squall in a more awkward position now.  

_Why did she have to say that now?  Of all times..._

“What’s that face for?  Too dark for you?”

“Uh, no, it’s just that, um...”

Rinoa stopped and cocked her to the side.  Squall cleared his throat and took a deep breath.

“It’s not a date,” Squall blurted, “There’s actually something I need to tell you and...”

His voice trailed off at the sight of her expression falling into sadness.  He studied her face, trying to think of why she would be sad before he even said anything.

“You didn’t call me all the way here to... b-break up... did you?”

“...Shit, no.  No, no, that’s not it,” Squall panicked, “I promise, it’s nothing like that.”

“Don’t say stuff like that!” Rinoa smacked his arm, “What’s the matter with you?”

“I—I didn’t— Listen, there is something I need to tell you and it is important.”

Rinoa huffed and crossed her arms, quickly blinking away the tears the had started to build.  A wave of guilt washed over Squall and he cursed himself for not spending the morning thinking at all about he was going to tell her about the sorceress in Fisherman’s Horizon.

“Okay, so what’s so important I had to come all the way here?”

_Well, now she’s mad.  Great._

“It’s actually about what you were just saying, kind of.”

“What?”

“About pawning off powers and not being a sorceress.”

“...Again, what?”

Squall grumbled to himself and turned his eyes to the ground.

“There’s a sorceress, in Fisherman’s Horizon, who’s dying and... they mayor wanted to ask—”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am.”

“No, why?” Rinoa whined, “Squall, that’s the opposite of what I wanna do, but how— What am I supposed to say?”

Squall shrugged helplessly.

“Can’t they find someone else?”

The tears started to glass over her eyes again.

“He said they tried, they can’t find anyone else.  They’re too hidden, if there is anyone.”

Rinoa stamped her foot and looked off to the side, setting her jaw.

“Look, Rinoa, I didn’t— I didn’t really want to tell you, I didn’t want to put you in this position, but...”

“But how could you not, right?” Rinoa asked.

Squall nodded once.

“I guess it’s a good thing,” Rinoa sighed, “I’d be mad if you didn’t.”

_Would you though?  You don’t want to be a sorceress._

“You can say no,” Squall offered, “You have every right to.”

“Do I though?  If there’s no one else, can I really say no?”

Rinoa dropped her head and shoulders.  Squall took her by the wrist and brought her in close to hug her.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.  And I don’t think you’re the last sorceress.  So yes, you can.”

Rinoa was silent for a moment, seriously considering saying no.  Squall was right; people would only get more upset if they learned she received more powers and she couldn’t be the last sorceress.  She knew who was the last and she also knew they were a long way from her time.  But still, she would feel terrible saying no.

“I’ll do it.”

Squall looked down at her in mild surprise.

“Guessing they want me to go there like...now?”

“More or less,” Squall muttered.

Rinoa hugged him tighter then stepped back to start walking again.  Squall frowned, again wondering where she was going exactly.  He still hadn’t said where the airship was, or that he’d even taken an airship.  He took several long strides to catch up and get in front of her to lead the way.  Rinoa wiped at her eyes and took a deep breath. 

“You look like crap, by the way,” Rinoa commented.

Squall gave her a side-eyed glare.

“I mean, like you had the worst night of sleep ever.”

“Wasn’t the best.”

“You haven’t been sleeping good lately.”

Squall shrugged.

“C’mon, something’s gotta be going on.  Normally, you sleep like the dead.”

“It—”

“Don’t say it’s nothing.”

“So, what is it?”

“....”

“Squall...”

“You told me not to say ‘nothing’,” Squall sneered jokingly.

Rinoa stopped and dropped her head back and groaned.  Squall ignored her and kept walking, he knew she was standing back there with her arms crossed and an expectant look on her face.  He also knew she’d give up once he got too far ahead of her.  He could almost even time it.  A few more steps and he heard her exasperated groan, followed by hurried footsteps to catch up.

“Squall, you promised you’d say something if it was serious,” Rinoa huffed.

_May as well give her something._

“It’s not serious, it’s just...” Squall sighed and rolled his eyes, “Bad dreams is all.  People have them all the time.”

“What about?”

“...”

Rinoa scowled at him, but he wasn’t going to say anything more about it.  He wasn’t sure he could even call them dreams.  He knew dreams were sometimes weird or unsettling things you wouldn’t normally think about, but Ultimecia was far too real in those ‘dreams’ for his mind to be making up.  What she said and what she showed him, her _touch_ , it all felt too real.

“It’s just a lot of stuff going on with work,” Squall lied.

Rinoa scowled at him, but didn’t press for more answers.

“Will you at least try to sleep on the way there?”

Squall shrugged.

“C’mon, that’s what autopilot is for.”

“Alright, yeah, I’ll try to sleep.”

Rinoa smiled a little and wrapped her arms around his.  He didn’t say anything about the fact that Fisherman’s Horizon was less than an hour away.

Once they reached the airship and got it up to the minimum altitude to turn on autopilot, Squall leaned back and closed his eyes.  He knew he wasn’t going to get any decent rest, but he didn’t want to try to stay awake.  Just as he felt sleep start to pull him under, the airship’s navigation chimed they were close to Fisherman’s Horizon.  Squall grumbled a few sleepy profanities and turned off the autopilot to land the airship.

“Maybe a nap wasn’t the best,” Rinoa hummed.

Squall glared at her.

“You look a little more dead,” Rinoa winced.

Squall sighed and ran his hands down his face, trying to will himself more awake.  The ocean breeze that swept in when the doors opened helped; Rinoa hid behind him to shield herself until it died down.  She didn’t say anything as she held Squall’s arm again as they made their way to the mayor’s home.  When they arrived, they were let in with hardly a word said.  Only one person pointed them towards the office.  Squall pushed the door open and the mayor looked up from his desk at the sound.  He stared at Squall, then at Rinoa with hope.

“Um, Squall told me what— what you asked,” Rinoa started awkwardly, “And... I’ll do it...”

“Oh, thank you.  Thank you, truly.  I don’t know if we could ever repay you,” the mayor sighed with relief.

Rinoa only nodded, leaning into Squall. 

He wanted to remind her again that could still refuse, but he couldn’t bring himself to voice it in the mayor’s presence.  He could only rub her side and hope that somehow she could hear his thoughts.

“I don’t want you to feel rushed, but whenever you’re ready we can...”

The mayor trailed off, making an unsure motion with his arms.  Squall felt and heard Rinoa take a deep, steadying breath.

“We can go now,” Rinoa said as evenly as she could.

Relief washed over the mayor’s face as he smiled.  He gestured back towards the door, stepping around his desk to lead them to the sorceress’ home.  He thanked Rinoa profusely as he passed them and opened the door.  Rinoa hesitated to follow, looking up at Squall questioningly.

“You don’t have to,” Squall muttered quietly.

Rinoa dropped her gaze for a moment, then started towards the mayor.  Squall sighed and followed, wishing that she wouldn’t.  He couldn’t see any of this ending well.

The walk to the sorceress’ home started in awkward silence, until the mayor decided the break the silence by telling them about the woman.  She had been married, her husband passed some years ago, they had one son who’d left the island once he was an adult.  He still came to visit.  She was their only doctor for nearly thirty years.  But most interesting, she had always been lucky in the way of guessing outcomes and when she became a sorceress, that ‘luck’ revealed itself to be a latent ability to predict the future.  To be fair, these predictions often lacked details, but still accurate, and they came to her only when something of significance was involved. 

Squall rolled his eyes, but Rinoa listened intently as the mayor listed off a few of her predictions that had come true.

“You know, she even met Edea years and years ago.”

“Really?” Rinoa and Squall asked in unison.

“Yes, they stayed in contact for a short while until all this Ultimecia started.”

“Did she predict what would happen to her?” Squall asked dryly.

“Oh yes, yes.  It was back when her and Cid had just gotten married, they were here on their honeymoon and had heard there was a sorceress who could predict the future at times.  Of course, sorceresses weren’t quite so hated back then, so they wanted to meet her.  Just for fun, to see if she would say anything about them.”

“What did she say?” Rinoa asked.

“It was something to the effect of telling her she would meet a dying woman one day who would make her a powerful sorceress.  But that the dead come back to haunt.  She’d meet her again and again after her death.”

_Because of Ultimecia going back in time to possess her...this lady did get something right._

“Edea was, um...” the mayor hummed in thought, “Fascinated, I suppose by the prediction.  So, they stayed in contact, in case anything more came to her.  Their following conversations and a few more details coming to light is what led Edea to have the idea to start the SeeD program.”

_I wonder what she would’ve said about us._

The mayor stepped up onto the porch of a house, looking down and shifting uncomfortably.  He knocked on the door and went back to his shifting.  A moment later, the door was answered by a middle-aged man, who both Squall and Rinoa assumed must’ve been her son.  The man’s curious expression quickly turned to sadness as his eyes fell on Rinoa.  He worked his mouth a few times, trying to find something to say, but couldn’t.  He just pushed the door open wider and stepped aside.

The mayor ducked in quickly, but Rinoa now walked like her feet were lead.  At this point now, changing her mind wasn’t an option.

The man mumbled something about her laying down in the bedroom and led them through the house.  Rinoa curled her arms around Squall’s arm, keeping close to him.  The man stopped outside a bedroom door and stood just to the side of it, clearly not intent on going inside.

_He must’ve made his peace already...  Must be hard trying to say goodbye when you don’t really know when goodbye is..._

Rinoa moved forward, keeping Squall close by her side.  She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do exactly.  The succession with Edea had happened by circumstance and so quickly, sending her into a coma.  She didn’t know what to do with a dying woman trying to pass on her powers, let alone what might happen this time.

The sorceress was laying on the bed and seemed to be asleep.  She was only probably in her eighties, but she looked considerably older having been on death’s door for a while now.  Her skin was deathly pale and thin with her frail bones showing, her hair as white as Trabian snow and framing her hollowed face.  She opened her eyes, clearly blind in one, at the sound of their footsteps.  She studied Rinoa for a moment and closed her eyes with a content smile.  Rinoa stopped halfway across the room.

“Squall, I can’t do this,” Rinoa whispered, “This is— It’s just— I... I feel like I’m gonna kill her.”

“You’re not killing her, you’re doing her a favor.  She’s been dying,” Squall whispered back.

“He’s right,” the sorceress croaked and laughed weakly.

Both of them flinched; Rinoa at the sound of her voice, Squall at the fact that she could still hear.

“You are doing me a favor, staying here like this... It’s not good.”

The old sorceress turned her head to look at Rinoa again.  The content smile on the sorceress’ face faded.  She raised a bony hand and waved Rinoa over.  She turned to Squall with panic and fear.  He hugged her close, rubbing a soothing hand over her shoulders, then urged her closer.  The sorceress held a trembling hand out.  Rinoa bit her lip, still having no idea what she was supposed to do, she reluctantly took the sorceress’ hand in hers.  The sorceress’ face went blank and her eyes unfocused.

Rinoa gave an involuntary yelp and tried to pull back, convinced her touch had just killed the sorceress.  But she still held Rinoa’s hand tightly and worked her mouth wordlessly for several long seconds.

“The essence of time clings to you both.  You have seen the beginning and the end.  The world will never take its eyes off you,” the sorceress began, “And the world will never love you.  Another Sorceress War looms.  You will learn this suffering at the hands of a Galbadian SeeD.  Your knight will fall to him, try as you might to save him, and you will endure this suffering for an immeasurable amount of time, for the world will be executing us.  We will hide and not be so selfless as you.”

The air shimmered around the sorceress’ body, a magenta and white haze, the essence of her power, gathering around her.  The essence spiraled around her arm towards Rinoa.  The moment it reached her hand, it glowed brighter and the sorceress’ hand slipped away from her.  It wrapped itself around Rinoa, tense with fear and paranoia, and sent shivers down Squall’s spine as it grazed him.  The essence flashed brilliantly, blinding Squall.  He felt Rinoa’s body go limp and caught her before she could fall.  He blinked away the phosphenes and focused on Rinoa, unconscious in his arms.

_What the hell— No, no, not again, please not again...!_

He shook her, hoping to rouse her, and looked around the room.  The mayor stood with his mouth gaping, dumbstruck, and the sorceress’ son was anxiously peering into the room.  Squall looked to the bed— Her body was gone, taken by whatever force had claimed Adel and Ultimecia’s bodies upon their deaths.  Squall dismissed whatever little curiosity he had and tried once more to wake Rinoa.  She couldn’t be in a coma again, he couldn’t deal with it a second time.

Squall turned back to the mayor, for once looking like a helpless, frightened child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a little bit shorter than usual but if I went into the next it'd end up being like...almost two chapters in one lol anyway sorry about the delay I've been working on doing more art [**(FFVIII stuff if any of you are interested)**](https://www.deviantart.com/leoarcana)


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